Constitutional challenge seeks lifetime preservation of evidence

Alan Young, professor in York’s Osgoode Hall Law School, maintains that innumerable innocent people could be in prison because the Crown did not hand over physical evidence that might clear their names, reported The Globe and Mail April 22. With the 30th anniversary of the Charter of Rights having just taken place last week, Young says it is a perfect time for the court to extend its protections to the wrongly convicted. “To date, the Charter has not had any noticeable impact on improving legal protection of the wrongfully convicted,” Young said in an interview. Read full story.

Air Canada’s reset: Advice to help the airline straighten up and fly right
Fred Lazar, professor in the Schulich School of Business at York University, said Air Canada needs senior management to approach all its unions and outline the options of continued fighting and ending up in bankruptcy court, reported the Toronto Star April 20. “The other path is to sit down and work together,” said Lazar. As a sign of goodwill, managers should offer to cut their salaries significantly for two or three years, as well as corporate overhead costs, he said. Read full story.

Canadians discovering the full implications of Conservatives’ budget
Alex Himelfarb, former senior federal public servant and director of York University’s Glendon School of Public & International Affairs, was quoted in the Toronto Star April 22, in a column about the latest federal budget. “This budget gives pretty clear signals of a different Canada,” Himelfarb said in a recent analysis. The budget is “about redefining the purpose of government and undoing, brick by brick, in the slowest of motion, but inexorably, the institutions and programs built over decades following the Second World War, by governments of quite different stripes.”

York University ‘calmed down’: School shifting away from confrontational activism, observers say
In a column in the National Post April 23, several members of the York community commented on the improved relations between York’s diverse constituencies. York political science professor Robert Drummond noted a lessening of tensions over the Middle East. York President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri says the climate has improved amid a “concerted effort” by students and administrators to strengthen relationships “among the many groups within the York community.” York student ambassador Ali Kanani agreed, noting conflict over the Middle East has become “far more of an intellectual debate.” Read full story.

Critics allege OxyNEO was introduced in Canada because of impending patent expiry
In a Toronto Star story April 21 about the introduction of a replacement drug for the controversial OxyContin, Dr. Joel Lexchin of York University’s School of Health Policy & Management, Faculty of Health, who co-authored a study of OxyContin use in Canada and the US, is blunt: “I think you would have to question whether the new version has more to do with concern about market share than with concern about patient care.” Read full story.

Green collar jobs are a science and an art
York grad Andy Schonberger (MBA ’09), the director of Earth Rangers Centre for Sustainable Technology in Woodbridge, found that green collar jobs didn’t come so easily once he graduated as an engineer from McMaster University, reported Canada.com April 23. “I found that to get into green tech, I needed some business skills,” he said. Schonberger decided to enter the Erivan K. Haub Program in Business and Sustainability at the Schulich School of Business at York University, where he was able to develop his management skills. Read full story.

ArtsView: Barry Elmes Quintet shares a love of jazz with students
Music students at Port Hope’s Trinity College School were fortunate to attend a workshop with noted Toronto jazz band, the Barry Elmes Quintet, on April 19 in LeVan Hall, reported northumberlandview.ca April 20, in a story about the band, led by Elmes, professor in York’s Faculty of Fine Arts. The workshop was sponsored by the All-Canadian Jazz Festival as part of its educational mandate. Read full story.

Can Porn Be Feminist?
The jury at the Feminist Porn Awards, now in their seventh year, includes Sheila Cavanagh, a gender and sexuality-studies professor in York University’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, and author of Queering Bathrooms: Gender, Sexuality and the Hygienic Imagination, reported TheDailyBeast.com April 21. Read full story.

Monday Talk with Richard Powell – The force behind VMBS
The finance bug really bit Richard Powell (MBA ’85) when he went off on a Commonwealth scholarship to do his MBA at York University, Ontario, Canada, in 1984, reported jamaica-gleaner.com, April 23,in a profile of the president & CEO of Jamaica’s Victoria Mutual Building Society. “By the end of first year, when we had taken all our core courses, I realized that I really liked finance, and so, even though I had gone to do general management or public-sector management, I found myself taking every available finance course.” Read full story.

Moyenne continues to dazzle
They are a local band that encompasses Caribbean jazz sheerness and brilliance, reported the Trinidad & Tobago Guardian online April 22. Moyenne has been on the jazz scene for the last 10 years. The band was founded in 1998 when pianist and York fine arts grad Chantal Esdelle (MA ’10) joined her friend and steelpan player Glenford “Kevin” Sobers, who had spent several years touring Asia with a contemporary Caribbean band. Read full story.

BWW Interviews: Albert Schultz talks Soulpepper’s secret to success
Soulpepper Theatre’s founding artistic director Albert Schultz first delved into theatre while training at York University’s Faculty of Fine Arts, and then was part of the Stratford Festival Young Company under Robin Phillips, wrote BroadwayWorld.com, April 21, in the introduction to a feature interview.  Read full story.