T H I S  O U R  C A N A D A

Ladies of the Lake
Nudity as Weapon

TWO years back, ladies who often strolled or lived close to Lake Simcoe, Toronto, often wondered why no one cared for the growing weeds and other garbage along with lake. Weeds and bushes were nearly choking the famed Lake Simcoe. Its blue clean water was getting muddy. At times they felt helpless and debated among themselves what could be done to create awareness among the government officials, public men, business and the local citizens to rescue the lake.  Apathy was disturbing them.

Lake Simcoe is the second biggest lake in Ontario after Nipigon. There are such lakes in Ontario province of this beautiful country, Canada.

They saw the native herring, whitefish and walleye are dwindling, an indicator of rising temperatures in the lake and lower oxygen levels. To the cottagers and year-round residents, watching the lake decline was like witnessing the demise of a close family member, recalls Susan Walker of the Toronto star. Everybody used to drink the water directly from the lake, but no longer now.

But then these 100 ladies living in the watershed of the lake shook their dependence and began awareness campaign and raise funds to clean up the act. A strategy of change was required. It was the naked truth which they demonstrated though a calendar carrying their nude photographs. These tastefully denuded selves of pretty or not so pretty nymphs earned them $ 250,000.

Their slogan about the lake is: Drink it. Swim it. Fish it. Love it. They have showcased their concern in an artistic way, offering people to their bodies and understand the Naked Truth about the lake and do something. Their awareness campaign is now getting into a political debate and a grass root action. They have already got a detailed study conducted and are meeting with town officials and the political bigwigs. Nudity was their way and the purpose to clean the environment and the lake.   They think about what role do they play to help integrate all the groups and all the voices and how to use our expertise to co-ordinate all these various organizations as        they believe Lake Simcoe will be restored when everyone takes responsibility for it. It's not a question of nagging or making people feel guilty, they say and involved all.

They feel the environment has to be totally integrated into everybody's way of life. Watershed Council needs to be established to manage the lake. It would be modelled after the Lake Champlain Basin Programme, which was created after concerned citizens in Quebec and the states of Vermont and New York coordinated.

These ladies are amazing messengers for environment improvement and the lake is just a microcosm of the bigger picture.

Lake Simcoe is a located in southern Ontario. At the time of the first European contact in the 17th century, the lake was called Ouentironk ("Beautiful Water") by the Huron natives.  Soon after, it became known as Lake Toronto, an Iroquoian term. "Toronto" was in reference to the several Huron fish weirs located in the lake and meant "place where trees stand in the water." Early French traders also referred to it as Lac aux Claies, the "lake of weirs". It was renamed by John Graves Simcoe, the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada in the late 18th century for his father. The name Toronto found its way to the current city via its use in the name the Toronto Passage, a portage running between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay, that passed through Lake Toronto, which in turn was used as the name for an early French fort located at the foot of the Toronto Passage, on Lake Ontario.

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A Curse from Modern Civilization
Eat, Drink and get Diabetes

WE have Play stations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, video games at all, 150 channels on cable, video movies and DVD’s and we are surrounded by the sound of sound or CD's,  cell phones,  personal computers,  Internet and  chat rooms.......We require friends  but  do no go outside to them. We do not leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we wished and do not know when the stars shine and moon rise. But we eat and when can not we still eat and still when we can not we buy and throw into garbage bins. That is life style.

The result as the latest issue of British medical journal The Lancet revealed   is diabetes. Diabetes can create a host of complications such as coronary disease, blindness, kidney failure and amputation. ne in every 11 Canadian adults now suffers from diabetes, according to a disturbing report that charts the steady rise of the chronic disease over the past decade.

The startling increase in diagnosed cases is the result of galloping obesity, an aging population, immigration by ethnic groups at high risk of diabetes and better treatments, which have prolonged the lives of those living with the disease. The study found the number of people in Ontario with diabetes more than doubled in the decade between 1995 and 2005.

Like other parts of the developed world, Canada and Ontario have seen a big increase in obesity rates over the last decade and we know that obesity is a powerful risk factor for diabetes. The number of people with diabetes in Ontario climbed 113 per cent – from 388,000 in 1995 to 827,000 in 2005.After adjusting for population growth, the percentage of people with diabetes in the province grew by almost 70 per cent, rising to 8.8 per cent from 5.2 per cent in one decade.

About 90 per cent of that can be attributed to people with Type Two Diabetes, a progressive ailment that develops during adulthood and affects the body's ability to produce and use insulin.

The Ontario rate already surpasses a prediction by the World Health Organization, which estimated that 6.4 per cent of the world's population will have diabetes by 2030. If one in 10 Ontarians – about 1.2 million people – develops diabetes it could cripple the health care system.

The researcher says it is possible Ontario's numbers are high because it is home to large immigrant populations who are more susceptible.

The Canadian Diabetes Association says people of aboriginal, Hispanic, Asian, South Asian or African descent are at higher risk of developing the disease.

"There has been a parallel, 50 per cent increase in immigration from those (high risk) areas in Ontario alone so it's possible that may be contributing to those diabetes numbers here." Although the study did not look at other parts of Canada or North America, researchers think the story is the same everywhere: the root of the problem is obesity. "I think the major driving factor is changes in lifestyle which promote an increase in obesity and that are a national and North American problem," says Lipscombe.

Some 80 per cent of deaths in diabetics can be attributed to heart disease and stroke. But new cases are climbing each year, according to Lipscombe. She notes there were 6.6 cases per 1,000 people in 1997 and 8.2 per 1,000 in 2003.

And while the percentage of the population over the age of 50 who have diabetes increased by 63 per cent between 1995 and 2005, it spiked by 94 per cent among those between 20 and 49 years.

What are we doing? More education, campaign like the anti smoking and early diagnosis, these researchers tell us.

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Brain drain from China to British Columbia

Chinese government has raised an alert about a severe brain drain and has listed Canada among the top recipients of its exported talent. But as much as the talent war is raising fears in China, it has been a cause for hope in British Columbia.

A report by the Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing says China suffers the world's most severe brain drain. Since 2002, more than 100,000 students have gone abroad to study annually, with only 20 to 30 per cent returning to China, the state-run newspaper China Daily reports. The study lamented that China was losing its foreign-trained professionals to Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Australia and urged them to return home.

B.C. universities are experiencing some of their highest enrolments of students from China and the provincial government is looking increasingly to international students and immigrants to help stem a projected labour crunch.  The enrolment of Chinese nationals rose by 353 per cent over a decade to 1,029 students this school year. At Simon Fraser University, the enrolment of students from China has jumped more than twofold in five years to 914 this year, up from 356 in 2002.

China has been making a real push to keep students at home. it has 16 million students in post-secondary (education) right now. Their goal is to have 30 million by 2010. To some, the Chinese brain drain seems counter-intuitive, given China's roaring economy.

Zhang says while businessmen are drawn to China, professionals such as engineers are sought-after everywhere, and many are attracted to Vancouver's laid-back lifestyle.

This is welcome news for the B.C. government, which recently warned of a "demographic time bomb" characterized by an acute labour shortage as baby boomers sail off into retirement.

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Canadian Population Growth: Highlights from 2006 Canadian Census Report

Between 2001 and 2006, Canada's population grew by 1.6 million, a growth rate of 5.4% which is up from (+4.0%) from the 1996 and 2001 censuses period. According to the May 16, 2006, Census of Population, there were 31,612,897 people in Canada. Fifty years earlier, in the first national quinquennial census, Canada's population was 16 million, about half of what it is today.

An increase in international immigration was responsible for the acceleration of Canada's growth rate over the last five years. Since 2001, averages of about 240,000 newcomers have arrived in Canada each year, for a total of some 1.2 million immigrants in five years. Roughly two-thirds of Canada's population growth now comes from net international migration. The remaining one-third of the population gain is due to natural increase, the growth that results from there being more births than deaths. However, natural increase is becoming less important as a factor in population growth for two reasons: Canadian fertility has remained at about 1.5 children per woman for the last 10 years, and the population is aging, which means the annual number of deaths is increasing. According to population projections, net immigration may become the only source of population growth by about 2030.

A look at the 50 year growth rate chart indicates that despite its recent increase, Canada's population growth rate remains much lower than it was 50 years ago. Between 1956 and 1961, the population expanded by 13.4%, roughly three times faster than in the last five years. At that time, in the middle of the baby boom, women were having an average of more than 3.5 children.

The post-baby boom decline in fertility and the increase in deaths due to population aging have both played a role in slowing the pace of population growth substantially. The brief reversal of this trend that occurred in the late 1980s was due to an increase in immigration which coincided with a slight rise in fertility.

Despite the fluctuations in growth rate over the last 50 year Canada experienced more rapid population growth than any other G8 country in the five years. Nearly 60% of America's population growth is attributable to natural increase, as its fertility rate of close to 2 children per woman over the last few years is the highest of the G8.

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