Canada ought to raise its immigration quota substantially, said Tony Fang, a professor in York’s School of Human Resource Management, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, in the Financial Post Feb. 11. In a recent study, he said Canada could handle an extra 100,000 people each year, in addition to the 250,000 annual quota of immigrants. His study accounted for the effects of immigration on inflation, infrastructure and the labour market, finding no net adverse effects on wages or unemployment. Read full story.
Canada: As immigration booms, ethnic enclaves swell and segregate
The newcomer of 2012 does not have nearly the economic freedom as the newcomer of 1992, wrote the National Post Feb. 11, in a story about the recent history of Canadian immigration. “Although the term ‘ghettoes’ is rarely used in Canada, the concentration of immigrants into ethnic enclaves is similarly often caused by economic factors,” said Alex Lovell, a professor of geography in York's Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. Read full story.
Black History Month: The unknown story - Toronto’s first black postman
Toronto publisher Patrick Crean learned about Albert Jackson, Toronto’s first black postman, through York instructor Karolyn Smardz Frost’s book I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad, which he published in 2007 as head of Thomas Allen Publishers, wrote the Toronto Star Feb. 10, in an introduction to a feature story on Jackson. Read full story.
Founded on misery
For all the death, privation, suicide, depression and starvation of Canada, thousands of early immigrants stayed – and millions of us claim them as ancestors, wrote the National Post Feb. 11. What does it mean to be a country founded on misery? "There are people who genuinely experience trauma in this new country," said York University history Professor Roberto Perin. "There was a lot of duping going on." Read full story.
Toronto real estate: Why home is where the hurt is
“Anybody looking to buy a house in the city is looking at a scarce resource that was manufactured 50 or more years ago,” said James McKellar, associate dean in the real estate and infrastructure program at York's Schulich School of Business, in a comment in the Toronto Star Feb. 11. “What you’ve got is basically a limited supply and growing demand.” Read full story.
Stephen Leacock’s legacy
Commenting on the latest CBC Television adaptation of “Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town”, John McCullough, film professor in York’s Faculty of Fine Arts, told The Globe and Mail Feb. 11 that there’s a new momentum behind the old nation-building policy of regionalism in Canadian television programming – lucrative, province-wide tax credits designed to lure TV production outside of major centres. Read full story.
Keeping up with new channel for word of mouth
“Social media is the new channel for word of mouth,” said David Phipps, York's director of research services and knowledge exchange, in the National Post Feb. 13. “Even if you are good where you are, if you don’t engage in the way your competitors do you will lose ground because you aren’t part of the conversation.” Read full story.
Doubling teaching loads a bad idea
Michiel Herren, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus in the Department of Humanities, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, responded to a proposal to double teaching loads in a letter to the Toronto Star Feb. 11: “No decent academic, never mind a high-flyer, will take a job here to see his teaching load doubled and research time reduced to 10 per cent,” Herren wrote. “Similarly, marketable faculty now teaching here will exit the province faster than a captain can desert a listing ship.” Read full letter.
The little spacecraft that could
Professor Paul Delaney, an astronomer in York's Faculty of Science & Engineering, said he's thrilled that the instruments on board space probes Voyager I and II – still going after 35 years in space –will actually touch what lies beyond the Milky Way, wrote The Ottawa Citizen Feb. 11. "We believe we know what it is like between the stars," he said. "But, until you're there, you can't be sure that your models are correct." Read full story.
NDP MP Olivia Chow fights for her husband’s NDP successor in Danforth riding
Olivia Chow is not a woman — or a politician — to lose herself in grief, wrote the Toronto Star Feb. 11. She’s a cagey politician and strategist who played a fundamental role in her late husband Jack Layton’s success, as well as her own. Now she’s there for Craig Scott, Rhodes Scholar, London School of Economics graduate and professor at York’s Osgoode Hall Law School. He’s the NDP candidate in Layton’s Toronto-Danforth riding. Read full story.
Family law being shunned?
In straw polls with her classes over the past decade, only a small handful of students indicated they were interested in family law, reported Hilary Linton, a Toronto-based lawyer who also teaches at York’s Osgoode Hall Law School, in The Lawyers Weekly Feb. 13. This year, however, that number shot up. “I think [family law] has become really sexy,” she said. Read full story.
Former Canadian soccer star reveals drug-tainted double life
Former York master soccer coach Paul James’s soccer pedigree is long and distinguished, reported The Globe and Mail Feb. 11 – but, away from the pitch, James lived a secret hell afraid that his secret might leak out. He lifts the veil on his addiction to cocaine in a self-published e-book called Cracked Open. Read full story.
Accused in death of York student Qian Liu, to stand trial for first-degree murder
Brian Dickson, 30, will stand trial in the Superior Court of Justice for the first-degree murder of York student Qian Liu last year, in a case that became known as the “webcam killing”, reported the National Post Feb 10. Dickson is next set to appear in court on March 21, when a judicial pre-trial date will be set. Read full story.