(All pictures have been removed from the articles because they take up so much memory in each post. To see the pictures use the web address and visit the sites of the newspapers.)
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Critics furious as zoo carves up
lion, pulls its intestines out in front of children
KERSTIN SOPKE, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 10.14.2015
The dissection of a dead male lion at the Odense zoo in
Denmark.
Denmark Lion
This year the zoo has killed three of its lions, saying they
had failed to find new homes for them despite numerous attempts.
Lotte Tang Berg, left, and Rasmus Kolind at work Thursday.
"The reason we are dissecting it is that we believe
there is a lot of education involved in dissecting a lion," Michael
Wallberg Sorensen, a zookeeper at the Odense Zoo in central Denmark, told AFP
before.
Children react during the operation Thursday.
Children reacts to the dissection of the male lion in Odense
Thursday.
ODENSE, Denmark — A Danish zoo publicly dissected a year-old
male lion Thursday, pulling out its blood-red organs to show a few hundred
people including children — an event met outside of Denmark with criticism and
online protests.
Adult spectators brought scarfs to their noses to ward off
the pungent smell as they watched the dissection, considered by many in this Scandinavian
country of 5.6 million to be an educational program. The event was deliberately
scheduled to take place during the annual fall school holidays.
A Brussels-based animal protection group, however, sharply
criticized Odense Zoo, 170 kilometres west of Copenhagen, for killing three
healthy young lions this year.
Joanna Swabe, head of the Humane Society
International/Europe, said in a statement that “zoos routinely over-breed and
kill lions and thousands of other animals deemed surplus to requirements.”
She said zoos have “an ethical responsibility” and can use
contraceptive options “to manage reproduction, prevent inbreeding (and)
maintain genetically healthy populations.”
One of central Denmark’s most popular tourist attractions,
Odense Zoo has done public dissections for 20 years. On Thursday, scores of
children stood around a table where the zoo had displayed a stuffed lion cub
next to the lion being dissected.
Odense Zoo employee Lotte Tranberg said the male lion and
its two siblings were killed in February because they were getting sexually
mature and could have started mating with each other and the zoo wanted to
avoid inbreeding. They also could have killed each other because they would
have been kept in the same enclosure, she said.
Tranberg talked about the lives of big cats before cutting
up the stiff carcass of the lion, which had white tuffs of fur on its legs and
stomach. She also held up the lion’s blood-red organs to show the crowd.
Children raised their hands to ask questions during the operation, which she
answered.
Ole Hanson, a 54-year-old military officer, carried his
5-year-old grandson Frej on his shoulders so he could watch the dissection as
it started.
“But he wanted to get down and have a closer look. So he
ended up front, right before the lion,” Hanson said.
“For all the kids living in towns, it’s wonderful for them
to see and it’s only natural,” said Gitte Johanson, 28, another visitor who
grew up on a farm.
The zoo said it decided to dissect a male lion this time
because it was bigger than its female sibling.
Zoo officials say the lions were killed after they had
failed to find new homes for the animals despite numerous attempts. The remains
of the two other siblings — another male and a female — are still in a zoo
freezer, and officials have not decided what to do with them, said Jens Odgaard
Olsson, manager of the zoo.
On Facebook, a few dozen people on Thursday accused the zoo
and Denmark of having a lack of compassion. But on the zoo’s Facebook page,
ordinary Danes defended the dissection, asking English-speaking commentators
whether they ever had been to a slaughterhouse.
“Life isn’t the Disney Channel. Get over it …” Mikael
Soenderskov, one of the Danes defending the dissection, wrote.
Public dissections are common in Denmark. The Funen Village,
an open-air museum in Odense, slaughtered and dissected a pig Wednesday before
children while explaining which parts of the animal are eaten.
Odense Zoo itself was elected “Best in Europe” in the
category of zoos with up to 500,000 visitors per year in 2013 and 2015.
In February 2014, however, Copenhagen Zoo faced
international protests after a giraffe was killed, dissected and fed to lions
in front of children.
Quebec teachers sound optimistic note
about labour talks
CAROLINE PLANTE, MONTREAL GAZETTE
Published on: October 15, 2015 | Last Updated: October 15,
2015 7:46 PM EDT
French-language public school teachers demonstrate in
Montreal, Wednesday, September 30, 2015, where they protested against
government austerity cuts.
French-language public school teachers demonstrate in
Montreal, Wednesday, September 30, 2015, where they protested against
government austerity cuts. GRAHAM HUGHES / THE CANADIAN PRESS
Quebec — They may not be ready to claim victory just yet,
but teachers in the province say they have gotten rid of several “irritants”
during negotiations with the government on a new collective agreement.
Richard Goldfinch, president of the Quebec Provincial
Association of Teachers (QPAT), told the Montreal Gazette on Thursday that the
tone at the bargaining table has changed. “What we did this last week was we
came back with our global proposal and they accepted it quite well. They looked
at it and went ‘wow’ there’s some really interesting stuff here. And there was
some excitement at that point,” he said.
According to Goldfinch, the Couillard government has
abandoned the idea of increasing teachers’ workweek from 32 to 35 hours in the
collective agreement, and will not increase the student-teacher ratio in
elementary schools. The province also allegedly agreed to maintain allocated
funds and hundreds of resource-teacher jobs to help children with special
needs.
Treasury Board President Martin Coiteux did not confirm the
information, but his press attaché, Marie-Ève Pelletier, said discussions
around the negotiating table are indeed constructive. “We wish for a positive
outcome, to reach a negotiated agreement which respects taxpayers’ capacity to
pay and which does not lead to an increase in taxes or compromise achieving a
balanced budget in 2015-16,” she said.
QPAT, which represents 8,000 teachers in the province’s
English schools, is partners with the Fédération des syndicats de
l’enseignement (FSE) representing 65,000 teachers. Another 30,000 teachers are
represented by the Fédération autonome de l’enseignement. All of these unions
have rotating strike mandates, which they threaten to use toward the end of
October.
Teachers from at least 10 schools in the Quebec City area
have also cancelled Halloween celebrations as part of their pressure tactics,
the media learned on Thursday.
“We have this large strike mandate, we also have parents
supporting us because parents want to see a reinvestment in the school system.
We’re out there constantly … and I think what happened is the government woke
up and went, ‘Oh, we need to do something here, we need to make ourselves look
a little better right now’,” Goldfinch said, adding the larger question of
salaries and pensions still needs to be addressed.
Teachers, together with all public sector workers, are
asking for a 13.5 per cent raise over three years, while the government has
offered a two per cent salary increase over five years.
“You need to show teachers that they’re respected and this
is attached to salary,” argued Goldfinch. “Younger teachers, new teachers
coming into the system could progress along the salary scale a little faster so
you can attract good teachers to the system and retain them. That’s still up
for grabs.”
“It’s a roller-coaster ride,” he said.
cplante@montrealgazette.com
twitter.com/cplantegazette
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Seclusion rooms in schools do more harm than good,
experts say
Group urges B.C. government to ban controversial practice
By Jennifer Clibbon, CBC
News Posted: Oct 12, 2015 8:00 AM ET Last Updated: Oct 12, 2015
8:53 AM ET
The use of so-called "seclusion rooms" in schools
seems like a throwback to another era. But they were in the news this week amid
a report by CTV about a child in B.C. with Down Syndrome who, it was revealed,
was regularly locked in a room when he was judged to be disruptive.
Many Canadians may be unaware that seclusion rooms are,
according to experts in special education, used by school boards across the
country as a place to send kids with special needs for "time-outs."
Should 'isolation rooms' be banned in B.C. schools?
School seclusion rooms concern Autism Society
Autistic boy kept in 'isolation rooms' at Peel schools,
lawsuit alleges
The non-profit advocacy group Inclusion BC was the first to
publish data about this practice in its 2013 report Stop Hurting Kids:
Restraint and Seclusion in BC Schools.
'One of my colleagues was in tears.'
— Sheila Bennett
But the organization said last week the provincial
government has done almost no followup since the report came out, and that
seclusion rooms should be banned.
CBC News asked three Canadian experts in special education
about the use of seclusion rooms and the argument against them.
Pat Mirenda is an expert in special education at the
University of British Columbia, Sheila Bennett is a professor in teacher
education at Brock University, and Jacqueline Specht is director of the
Canadian Research Centre on Inclusive Education at Western University.
Just what exactly is a seclusion room?
Mirenda: A room or space in which a child is involuntarily
confined and from which he or she is physically prevented from exiting, usually
because the door or exit is locked or blocked in some manner.
Bennett: Sometimes called "isolation rooms" or
"calming rooms" — at their most extreme they are locked rooms with
padded walls and oftentimes can be an available nurse's room, empty office or
another available space.
Seclusion room at New Westminster Secondary School
According to Inclusion BC's 2013 report, this photo shows a
seclusion room at New Westminster Secondary School. (Inclusion BC)
What's your own reaction to the fact that they exist in
Canada?
Specht: I was saddened when I first read the report [by
Inclusion BC] in 2013 … In a bygone era perhaps we did not know better. We know
better now and our institutions of learning should not participate in
activities that we know are physically and psychologically harmful.
Bennett: The existence of rooms like this pose a
particularly disturbing problem for teachers. If you are in a school where one
is built there is an unconscious or conscious support for its use. As educators
the notion that dollars would be spent on such a thing must suggest to us that
we should use it and that it must be of benefit to students. That is the real
danger of these rooms.
How prevalent is their use across Canada?
bennett
Sheila Bennett is a professor in teacher education at Brock
University. (Brock University)
Mirenda: We don't know, as data collection and reporting
requirements about its use are school-district specific in Canada.
But in July 2015, a report entitled How Safe is the
Schoolhouse? found that seclusion was used at least 110,000 times in one school
year in the United States, based on data collection is the states where this is
a requirement. So, this is a common practice in most school districts, it would
seem.
Bennett: In Canada the use of seclusion rooms would be
specific to jurisdictions and individual school boards. Indeed schools
themselves would vary in terms of school practices and usage. In Ontario,
school boards that have isolation rooms are required to have plans in place for
their use.
Describe one you have encountered.
Bennett: I have seen more than one example. In the EU on an
inclusive education research trip I saw a small house as part of a residential
school for students with special needs with one boy who spent his days and
nights alone there with centre staff. In Ontario, in the middle of a high
school I also saw an isolation room. One of my colleagues was in tears just
seeing that they still existed.
Mirenda: It was a small room, maybe five feet by six feet,
with a padded mat on the floor and padded walls, and a locked door with a small
Plexiglas window for observation. It was in a high school in B.C. in 2012, and
was used specifically with a student with autism.
When were they introduced and why are they used?
Mirenda: Seclusion rooms are not new; they have been around
for years, probably as long as schools have existed … Ironically, they are
often referred to as "calm down" rooms, although it is unlikely that
a student will calm down when he or she is locked in a room and prevented from
leaving it.
What's the argument for banning seclusion rooms?
mirenda
Pat Mirenda is an expert in special education at the
University of British Columbia. (UBC)
Specht: They are not in keeping with the dignity of the
human person. They tell students that they are bad people and need to be
punished. The punishment destroys any attempt that has been made to develop a
healthy relationship with that child. Punishment does not teach children more
socially desirable behaviours. If a child could monitor and self-regulate,
he/she would. Clearly children that escalate need teaching on what they can do
to control their own behaviours.
Mirenda: They are not educative at all; at best, the student
who is placed in seclusion might learn what not to do but they provide no
supports designed to teach the student what to do. They are traumatizing, both
for the student who is placed in such a room and for classmates who observe
their friend being treated in this way and probably wonder if the same thing
can happen to them. Finally, they are a violation of the student's right to
autonomy and dignity as a human being.
What is the thinking among special needs experts about the
alternatives to seclusion and isolation?
Specht: As social beings we need people. We need to belong …
Much of the research in this area tells us that when schools implement programs
that help children develop social and emotional regulation and the whole school
is working together, children thrive. A healthy environment is key.
What kind of support do teachers need in order to make that
happen?
specht
Jacqueline Specht is director of the Canadian Research
Centre on Inclusive Education at Western University. (Western University)
Specht: Teachers need to believe that they are capable to
teach all students, and given the support to work with students who have
behavioural challenges in a positive rather than punitive manner. When the
whole school has the same perspective and some expertise in implementing
positive behaviour supports, all teachers can learn.
Mirenda: Teachers need training in functional behaviour
assessment and positive behaviour support, and they need ready access to a
district- or board-level team with specific expertise in these procedures, for
back up.
In most cases, teachers place students in seclusion rooms
out of desperation, when they don't know what else to do, so the real solution
is to prevent behaviour from escalating to the point where seclusion is even on
the radar screen — and we know how to do this.
Long
inquest has bad start
Posted: Tuesday, October 6, 2015 6:00 am
AN INQUEST is defined as a legal inquiry led by a coroner,
usually with a jury to determine the cause of a sudden death where there is a
possibility that the death was the result of a crime or of a situation that
could be dangerous to others. The largest inquest in Ontario’s history finally
got under way in Thunder Bay Monday. It deals with seven deaths, not one. If
crimes were involved they likely have more to do with the vast inequities in
Canada’s remote First Nations reserve system and the expectation that needed
secondary education simply means moving young people to cities and expecting
them to cope with the culture shock. It is a situation that has proven
dangerous more than these seven times and surely will again if we do not find a
way to ease the transition. Hopefully, this inquest will do that when the jury
issues its recommendations in an estimated six months’ time. But the process
did not get off to an auspicious start.
Despite three years of planning, the inquest was late in
starting Monday and did not have enough seats for family members. A lawyer for
the families complained about the cramped quarters — in Thunder Bay’s
gargantuan new courthouse — prompting the coroner to promise a bigger room
today.
The delays in planning and starting are themselves a form of
crime against the families of seven young people — mothers, fathers and
siblings who have waited all this time to find out why they died here, far from
home. Aside from the direct causes of deaths, the inquest is also expected to
examine police response to them and the wider issue of often strained relations
between First Nations people and the rest of the Thunder Bay community.
This repeated pattern of death by drowning and also,
allegedly, by drugs, has caused some to question the need for an inquest at
all. Don’t we already know essentially what happened? Haven’t First Nations
leaders been saying for years that expecting teenagers from tiny fly-in
communities in Ontario’s Far North to fit into boarding homes and attend a big,
new school hundreds of miles from home is expecting too much — expecting
trouble?
Plans for a First Nations student residence in Thunder Bay
close to Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School will provide like companionship
and guidance. That such a setup might also magnify the excesses typical of
student residences is a challenge for its creators but it is a challenge worth
taking.
The real value of this inquest is that we will have examined
the problems in this distance education experiment and probably ways to fix
them. Most important of all is that the jury recommendations will have legal
standing. They will have to be addressed, politically. It will be up to all
Ontarians to decide if reasonable recommendations result in realistic solutions
for the benefit and safety of First Nations youth who must pursue an education
if they have any hope of succeeding in life and, ideally, making life better on
the difficult and sometimes dangerous reserves they come from.
Waterloo firm promises porn-free
schools
Jeff Outhit
Waterloo Region Record | Oct 10, 2015
WATERLOO REGION — A Waterloo technology firm says it can bar
schoolchildren from seeing pornography online, but it's been unable to interest
the local public school board or the province after reaching out.
Netsweeper says
schools around the world use its website-blocking products, as does the
Kitchener Public Library. The firm says it can tailor a system to let each
local school decide its Internet filtering, without slowing network access.
"We only make a tool that allows them to choose what
they want to stop, block, or do, according to the policies of that school
system," said Perry Roach, chief executive. "Some schools are very
strict. Some countries care a lot about what their children see, and some don't
care anything about what they see."
He said the firm would happily let the public board test its
technology.
Local school boards filter the Internet, but education
trustee Cindy Watson says some children at the public board are accessing
pornographic or racist material, on purpose or by accident. She wants the
Waterloo Region District School Board to consider letting individual schools
apply stronger filtering. Trustees are expected to debate her call in November.
The public board does not let schools choose their own
Internet filtering, concerned in part that some schools might go too far and
begin to censor. Watson would not comment on Netsweeper, but does not see
barring pornography from children as censorship. "To me, this is just
another safeguard. It's another protection," she said.
Netsweeper attracted controversy for selling its technology
to autocratic regimes that may use it to censor online speech or information
that Canadians consider democratic. The firm says it's up to clients to decide
how to use its products. "We don't pull the trigger. We just make the
tool," Roach said.
Back to the farm: Ontario urging
students to consider careers in agriculture
Keith Leslie
Waterloo Region Record | Oct 11, 2015
Rori Schaefer feeds a Rhode Island Red hen at Kitchener's
Steckle Farm in 2013. Ontario politicians want more young people to pursue
careers in agriculture.
TORONTO — Ontario politicians are taking steps to get more
young people to consider careers in the province's agricultural and food
sector, including some high-tech options.
Progressive Conservative MPP Lisa Thompson lined up
all-party support for her motion to add a component on the agriculture-food
sector to the "careers and guidance curriculum" for Grades 9 and 10
students.
"The reality is, for every graduate from the University
of Guelph (agricultural programs), three jobs are waiting for them," said
Thompson.
"We need to educate our young people about the amazing
opportunities that are out there in terms of agri-food careers."
New Democrat MPP John Vanthof, who owned a dairy farm for 30
years, said there are huge opportunities in the sector, and not just in
traditional ways.
"It's not just on the farm and it's not just in the
elevator," said Vanthof. "I don't have a dairy farm any longer, but
my daughter designs GPS systems for agriculture."
The Liberal government signalled its intention to act on
Thompson's motion, and said young people should be told about the job
possibilities in the sector.
"Students need to know that a career in farming is not
just about long hours and hard physical toil," said Liberal MPP Arthur
Potts, parliamentary assistant to the minister of agricultural and rural
affairs. "Modern farming requires advanced knowledge of science,
economics, marketing and much more to be successful."
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture, which represents
37,000 farm families, said the sector is vital to the economy, and students
should know it's also about protecting the environment and using the latest
science and technology to increase production.
"I don't only need kids in my own labour force that
know how to splice barbed wire on a fence, but (I need them to) know how to
splice genes to make the next hybrid that's going to revolutionize things here
in Ontario," said federation president Don McCabe.
The non-profit Ontario
Agri-Food Education Inc. said too many students do not have a realistic
idea of where their food comes from and need to learn "the truth"
about agriculture and farm practices.
"Until that happens, none of them are going to want
careers in this sector," said executive director Colleen Smith.
"They're all driven by a social conscience that is very refreshing these
days in high school students, and we want to make sure that agriculture is
there to answer those questions for them in the classroom."
Labour shortages are a top issue for agriculture businesses,
and Smith predicts there will be about 74,000 job openings in Canada's
agri-food sector by 2022, but warns one in three will go unfilled because of a
shortage of applicants.
Vanthof frequently had students tour his dairy farm, and
said he realized the need to better educate young people about farming during a
visit by a high school class.
"One of the kids said: 'Boy, I'm glad we get our milk
from the store because we sure wouldn't want to get it from cows,' and he was
serious," he said. "We changed the focus of our tours to talk about
GPS and (technology), and kids got very interested."
The Canadian Press
Another view: Preparing for a grey
tsunami
Editorial
Waterloo Region Record | Oct 08, 2015
An editorial from the Winnipeg Free Press:
There is a reason federal party leaders are meeting elderly
Canadians on their campaigns. Older people vote in high numbers; much higher
than younger Canadians.
And now, Statistics Canada figures show, the country is
aging, slowly but surely, giving senior citizens power at the polls.
The number of people 65 and older crossed a threshold in
2014, comprising just a slightly greater proportion than Canadians 14 and
younger. That means public policy — and vote-buying promises — are increasingly
focused on the realities and demands of an aging population. Older Canadians
marking ballots Oct. 19 will choose among party pledges that boost tax credits
and incomes for senior citizens, ensure they can live longer in their own homes
or, when the time comes, be assured there's a bed in a nursing home waiting for
them.
Canadians should get used to seeing their taxes spent on
services to elderly people, because the trend shows that age group is where the
growth is. In fact, demographers forecast in a decade's time, those 65-plus
will make up more than 20 per cent of the population.
The rise of the grey wave — a tsunami some have said — has
implications, such as fewer young people working, paying the taxes and pension
premiums that fund services and programs for everyone, including the retired.
Top of mind is the health-care system, which will have to
serve a larger number of Canadians at the ages when the use of hospitals and
family doctors intensifies. By 2036, the Canadian Medical Association predicts,
62 per cent of health budgets in the country will be spent on the elderly.
There was no surprise, then, that Tom Mulcair homed in on
dementia as a priority for an NDP government, forming a strategy to screen for
and treat it and to help families care for the afflicted.
Manitoba appears to have a little more time to prepare for
an aging population. Rising immigration and a high First Nations population
(disproportionately young) have helped keep the province young as baby boomers
move into retirement age. And so this province has to work to ensure young people
are educated, trained and ready for the jobs.
But it also has work to do to ensure the health system, most
immediately, can meet the demand. A new survey done by the Canadian Institute
of Health Information shows that might be a challenge, especially as it relates
to the elderly. Manitoba saw more physicians than other provinces leave to work
elsewhere in the country, and most of them were family doctors — the go-to
medical professional right now for the elderly.
That's remarkable in that family doctors are paid better
here, on average, than in other provinces. (Alberta paid the most in 2014, but
that was also true of specialists, who seem to be staying in Manitoba.)
But there's only so much the health system — and the
provincial treasury that sustains it — can do. The evidence is the elderly
today are healthier, and wealthier, than were their parents. Keeping fit and
sticking to a healthy lifestyle while aging is the best bet for living longer
in good health. And that is where more effort of government departments and
health professionals should be focused — pushing exercise, not pills.
It's natural for Canadians to look to their governments to
direct spending on services and programs suited to the needs of the country.
And that is particularly true of the big priorities — meeting the need for
skilled labour, preparing for chronic diseases, adequate and appropriate
housing or income supports.
But no one needs a politician to tell us what happens to
spending — and taxes — if a disproportionately older population is a sicker,
disabled population.
