Friday, June 15, 2012

Questions Invoked by the Teacher's Termination



According to an article published by National Post sent from Montreal, the teacher who screened a video that police allege depicts the murder of Jun Lin at the hands of Luka Rocco Magnotta has been fired, the Marguerite Bourgeoys school board announced Thursday. Moreover,  Montreal police said criminal charges on the teacher are a possibility. The type of charge falls under the “offences tending to corrupt morals” in the Criminal Code.
“The unacceptable nature of the teacher’s action demanded an unequivocal response,” school board chairwoman Diane Lamarche-Venne said in a statement.
The 29-year-old teacher showed students in his Grade 10 history class the gruesome video on June 4 after they voted in favour of seeing it by a show of hands. The video shows a naked, bound victim being stabbed with an icepick, decapitated and dismembered.
Students had circulated a petition demanding that the teacher keep his job, saying they were the ones who had asked to see the video.
A protest was held outside the west-end Cavelier-De LaSalle High School around lunchtime today while much of the student body has signed a petition calling for the return of the teacher.

Though it is obviously inappropriate for students of a minor age to view violent and sexual videos, we may have several questions popped up in our mind:
1) How should we educate children if they hear of such infamous events?
2) Do children at the age 16-17 have the right to access to or to request information though it may be unpleasant?
3) If the teacher doesn't show the video in class, and if some kids in the class see the video at home online, don't you think the watching at school accompanied by the teacher may be better?
4) Should classroom teaching more student-oriented or teacher-oriented? Or, is there a line drawn between kids of different ages? For example, for kids of a minor age, the teacher has the last say; for kids over 18, the students have the last say.
5) Are there clear, well-defined and commonly understood and accepted rules and regulations for online content viewing and distribution?

If we can provide a satisfactory answer to these questions, we may be able to prevent such unhappy things to happen again as the students may regret the loss of a teacher and the teacher may face a life penalty of never being able to teach at school.

Friday, June 8, 2012

Oilsands: Positive or Negative?



On the eve of NDP Leader Tom Mulcair's visit to Alberta's oilsands, a new report backs his claim that Canada's economy suffers from a form of Dutch Disease, which refers to the manufacturing decline that occurred in the Netherlands after a boom in natural gas exports in the 1970s[i]

A study released Wednesday by the Pembina Institute says Canada has come down with a unique strain of the phenomenon, dubbed "oilsands fever," that is producing near-term economic benefits that are often overstated. This strain could pose a significant risk to Canada's competitiveness in the emerging, clean energy economy, as oil exports raise the value of the Canadian dollar, which in turn hurts the economy in other parts of the country.

The report says these benefits are spread unevenly across the country and could be hiding economic turmoil down the road, and it suggests the federal government to create a rainy-day savings fund for oil and gas revenues, get rid of tax breaks for oil and gas companies, convene an expert panel on the oilsands and the economy, study regional competitiveness in an era of a high loonie and work on a national energy strategy.
But another report by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute says Canada's oil and gas industry is spreading the wealth by using the money earned from booming exports to buy goods and services from the rest of the country. The study found all provinces will enjoy benefits from oil- and gas-rich western provinces that far outweigh any ill-effects from a higher Canadian dollar.

It is not clear that if Muclair has been educated or not, but at least he was careful not to fan the flames of western anger (referring to AB and SK), according to Gillian Steward, columnist of the Star[ii]. AB’s NDP leader Brian Mason wasn’t so enthusiastic about the federal NDP leader’s remarks about Dutch disease and made it clear that “limiting Alberta’s opportunities” was not a solution. Alvin Finkel, an Edmonton historian and longtime NDP supporter, wonders how Mulcair is going to balance the provinces. “If he wants to maintain at least some western support, he has to promise that the monies pulled directly by the state from oilsands will be invested within the region for alternative energy startups, upgrading of oilsands oil, etc. Otherwise he does look like he’s simply trying to directly transfer wealth from Alberta and Saskatchewan to central and eastern Canada . . . ” Finkel said in an email.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development warns in a report released Wednesday that the run-up in commodity prices is leading to an uneven economy in Canada[iii].

And it says the country needs to do more to develop non-resource aspects of the economy in order to maintain high levels of employment and an equitable distribution of wealth across regions.

"The export-oriented manufacturing sector had by 2011 shrunk sharply to only 12.6 per cent of total value added, down from a peak of 18.6 per cent in 2000. Its share of employment has also fallen substantially over the past decade from 15.2 per cent to 10.2 per cent and somewhat more than in the United States," it notes.

"Both outcomes have been clearly correlated with exchange-rate developments."

Instead, it advocates that Canada boost innovation and invest in churning out skilled workers. It said that would lead to higher productivity, which should benefit the non-resource sectors.

Jarrett said another way of tackling the issue is to increase equalization payments from wealthier regions to less affluent ones.

Well, whom should we agree with? To answer this question, we need to know the Canadian economic structure. Is it exported-oriented, or domestic-demand-oriented? Secondly, we need to know what roles western provinces play in the Canadian economy. Thirdly, we need to know what the extent of resource-based economy can be developed. Lastly but not least, we need to know the net result of oilsands development in the western provinces after considering the pollution effect. As for the first two questions, with solid research data, the writer can say for sure that oilsands development are positive for both western provinces and the rest of Canada. As for the third one, Ding and Field found out that either positive and negative effects can be detected using different measures. Wen and King demonstrated that with a bad system in transaction efficiency, a country rich in resources can incur the resource curse[iv]. As for the last one, as long as there is a feasibility study in place before the development including an environmental plan approved by ecologists, the development should be supported.

Have you ever thought of the situation of opening a window which lets in some flies? Do you ever shut the window due to the flies or do you just pick up a flyswatter to kill the flies while keep the window open? Also, do you think that equalization payments can stimulate the economic growth?

To obtain more information, please contact CCFTCC.




[i]  CBC: 'Oilsands fever' seen as Canada's Dutch Disease, May 30, 2012.
[ii]  Gillian Steward: NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair treads lightly while visiting the oilsands, the Star, June 4,   2012.
[iii]  Julian Beltrame: OECD sees signs of Dutch disease in Canada, Metro, June 13, 2012.
[iv]  P. Stevens: Resource Impact curse or Blessing? A Literature Survey [ J], Journal o f Energy Literature, 2003, 9 ( 1) ; M. Drelichman: The Curse o f Moctezuma: American Silver and the Dutch Disease [ J], Explorations in Economic History, 2005, 42 (3).

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

What Can We Learn from Lin Jun's Event?

Lin Jun Murder: What Can We Learn from Body Parts Delivered to Political Parties and Canadian Schools?



                                                     Lin Jun and Luka Rocco Magnotta 

According to an article by Michelle Garcia,  a man's body parts arrived in mailed packages at two Canadian schools on Tuesday, in what could be the latest in the twisted murder of Chinese student Jun Lin (put as Lin Jun in China) who was possibly dismembered by his former lover, Luka Rocco Magnotta.
A foot and hand that are believed to be Lin's were discovered at the two Vancouver schools, False Creek Elementary School and St. George’s, a private school for boys, the Associated Press reports. Police would not confirm whether the foot and hand were indeed Lin's.
Magnotta, a Canadian porn actor, was arrested recently in Berlin and is expected to be extradited to Canada. He is accused of stabbing and chopping up Lin in a murderous act that was reportedly filmed in an 11-minute video, which shows Magnotta attacking a naked man tied to a bed frame in Montreal, as previously reported. The naked man, believed to be Lin, is attacked with an ice pick and a kitchen knife. The video then shows Lin being dismembered and Magnotta sexually assaulting his corpse. Magnotta may have also eaten parts of Lin's body. The murder occurred during the night of May 24-25.
Lin's family members are currently in Montreal with plans to meet with Montreal police and members of the media.
Last week, a foot arrived at Canada's Conservative Party headquarters, and a hand was intercepted by police on its way to the Liberal Party. Lin's torso was found in a suitcase behind an apartment building, in addition to other body parts found in separate body bags.
Magnotta was arrested while reading about himself in an Internet cafe in Berlin. He was out partying in Paris as police searched for him for days. Magnotta was born Eric Clinton Newman, in Scarborough, Ontario. He has at least 70 other Facebook accounts under different fictitious names.

Lin, a brilliant Chinese student, once a Microsoft engineer and the most talented in his class at university, born of a worker's family in Wuhan (also called China's Chicago) died an unworthy death under the hands of his "lover". 

No one could understand how the white guy and the Chinese young man could get together. However, what can be borne in mind are that:

1) Chinese people should not admire Western culture fervently without any doubt.
2) Homosexuality can be cool to Western people, but may not be suitable for the Oriental as both the cultures and the political systems are different.
3) Chinese can make friends with Caucasians, but they should remember that the cultures and customs are so different that it takes time to be close to each other.
4) Open as Magnotta, Caucasian people can perform sensational acts, however, the Chinese are famous for their intravertedness and modesty. So the Chinese people can become quite evilly open under the influence of such a man like Magnotta.
5) It's good to make friends, but it may be better not to if you are not so sure about the other side.