Mayor Donald Cousens announced Markham is proceeding, in collaboration with York University and the National Research Council, with the development of an innovation synergy centre, which is intended to be a service and mentoring centre for small entrepreneurial companies, reports the Toronto Star Nov. 14. Cousens also said that Markham is going ahead with a second partnership with York University to establish one or more venture-capital funds to assist entrepreneurial companies.
CIDA funds York-Brazil project
Canada News-Wire Nov. 13 reports that Judy Sgro, member of Parliament for York West, on behalf of the Honourable Susan Whelan, Minister for International Cooperation, announced a $750,000 contribution over six years to York University to provide support for developing water resources management expertise in Brazil.
Book on Karla violates agreement
Alan Young, Osgoode Hall Law School professor and criminal lawyer, argues that Karla Homolka, one of Canada’s most notorious killers, is “clearly violating the spirit of [her plea] agreement by trying to maintain some form of public exposure for her plight” he told Peter Mansbridge on “CBC News and Current Affairs” Nov. 13. They were discussing a new book about her and whether her correspondence with the author breaks the terms of a controversial plea bargain in which she agrees not to give an account directly or indirectly to the press, media or for the purpose of any book or movie.
No stopping shopping addicts online
“Compulsive shoppers going to a mall can recognize in their hands that they’ve spent a lot of money and bought a lot of things. When you do it [shopping] online a click is so much easier to do. There’s no social buffer,” says Richard Davis, a doctoral candidate at York who researches online addictions, reports CP Wire Nov. 13 on the ease with which you can buy, buy, buy over the Internet. Davis runs http://www.internetaddiction.ca/.
Ugly facts about the good war
History isn’t pretty, says Jacques Pauwels, who services up some ugly facts about our neighbours in his newest book, The Myth of the Good War: the USA in the Second World War, reports The Expositor in Brantford Nov. 14. Pauwels, an historian and Brantford-based cultural travel guide, graduated from York in 1976 with a PhD in history.
‘Bondage bungalow’ dominatrix
Alan Young, Osgoode Hall Law School professor and lawyer for “bondage bungalow” dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford, tried unsuccessfully in March 2000 to convince the Ontario Court of Appeal that her activities were no more similar to prostitution than the kissing booth at a country fair, reports CP Wire Nov. 13. The story focused on Bedford’s recovery from police of her paraphernalia seized in a raid, and her attempt to mount a constitutional challenge over a conviction of running a common bawdy house.