Alan Borovoy, general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, is this year’s winner of the prestigious Kroeger College Award for Ethics from Carleton University, reports Canada News-Wire Jan. 28. Borovoy has been a part-time lecturer at York University.
Free speech in the media
Police, metal detectors and photo-identification checks welcomed those attending a speech at York University in Toronto yesterday by a controversial US scholar of the Middle East, as officials tried to avoid a violent protest, begins a Globe and Mail report Jan. 29 of Daniel Pipes’ visit. In his address, Pipes criticized what he called “street opposition” to free speech, continued The Globe. The newspaper also printed an editorial praising York for refusing to be intimidated. “Of such victories, however small, is free speech made to last.” Other media also covered the event, including Broadcast News, CPWire, The Toronto Star, The National Post and The Toronto Sun.
Choose annuities in old age
RRSPs have their own life span and those in their 60s must start planning for the day when their registered plans must be folded, begins a Globe and Mail story Jan. 29 on their range of options.
“I would advise people to consider annuities in their late seventies or early eighties — no sooner — and to think of it as insurance against living longer than expected,” says Moshe Milevsky, a finance professor at York University’s Schulich School of Business.
Be wary of political donations
Ontario Premier Ernie Eves says donations to his leadership campaign from contractors bidding to redevelop an Ottawa hospital don’t represent a conflict of interest, reports The Ottawa Citizen Jan. 29. But Robert MacDermid, political science professor in York’s Faculty of Arts, says “companies giving political donations and getting contracts is a problem. The public should be justifiably wary about these kinds of donations.”
York survey helps health units
The Elgin-St;Thomas Health Unit will participate in a province-wide telephone survey designed to evaluate their programs and plan for the future, reports the St. Thomas Times-Journal Jan. 28. York University’s Institute for Social Research administers the survey — the Rapid Risk Factor Surveillance System — on behalf of health units across the province.
How evil triumphs
“AdoIf Hitler’s totalitarianism and his maniacal drive to remake the world in his own image have a distinctly 20th-century feel about them, they also remain a stark warning in our new century,” writes James Laxer, political science professor in York University’s Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies, in an opinion piece in The Globe and Mail Jan. 29. “A lifetime after he took power, exclusionism, ethnic cleansing, genocide and the idolization of leaders who seem to be able to solve problems through force are very much a part of our world. And the weapons Hitler deployed were mere toys in comparison to the weapons today’s great states possess.”