Save Lucy

Lucy is a 34 year old Asian elephant living at the Valley Zoo in Edmonton Alberta. She is socially isolated in a little enclosure, has medical problems and must endure extreme cold Alberta weather. Join the campaign to save Lucy by moving her to a sanctuary where she can be with other elephants, to socialize and roam free.

Check out these sites to learn more about how you can help Lucy.
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Join Bob Barker (Celebrity - Original Host of "The Price is Right"), William Shatner ("Captain Kirk" of the original Star Trek series), Debbie Leahy (Director of PETA), Margaret Atwood (Author).... and thousands of others, to help save Lucy from a life of isolation.

Mississauga: Couple asked to take down Canadian flag

A Mississauga couple were asked to take down the flag they have on a tree in the front yard of their home, for the past three years. It appears the flag has upset or "offended" someone.

"Rose Whittemann and Richard Field put up the flag about three years ago, but only recently received a message from the company that manages their housing complex, saying they would have to remove it.

"Our landlord received a letter claiming that we've either offended or upset somebody by having the flag," Whittemann said.

The company said if the couple did not remove the flag, maintenance workers would take it down and they would be charged a $200 fee. Whittemann and Field relented."

Source: CTV Toronto

I find it outrageous that someone can become upset, offended or in any way have their panties bunched up in a knot over our nations flag and an act of support and patriotism. I find it even more upsetting that this couple was bullied into taking it down and threatened with it's removal by maintenance workers at a charge of $200., if they didn't comply.

As an act of support, I would like to ask everyone to fly their Canadian flags and send us a picture of it to add to our Oh Canada album. Please include the city ( and other information you might want included e.g. photographer etc...)

CAW Warns Parents & Coaches of Sport's Leagues

"Playing field mowers are scabs, CAW warns
Union says it may stop funding children's sports leagues if coaches, parents cut grass during strike"

That was the headline to a story in The Windsor Star, May 29 - by Frances Willick

I really wasn't going to mention this strike at all.
It's ugly and both sides have issues but this warning is very disturbing.

"The CAW may stop sponsoring children’s sports leagues if coaches and parents take to the baseball diamonds and soccer fields with lawn mowers during the city workers’ strike.

“We don’t have a habit of funding scab organizations,” said Gary Parent, secretary-treasurer of CAW Local 444.

Mowing the sports fields would be tantamount to being a scab, he said, and that sort of interference would “absolutely” affect the council’s sponsorship.

“That would be taken into deep consideration,” he said, adding the council would have to investigate to find out who was maintaining the fields."

Holding the city hostage and making threats like a regular school yard bully might not be the way to deal with this. I'm sure when the dust settles there will be people on both sides that won't forget what's happened and some hurt feelings will linger. We really don't need the bad publicity nor do we need another black eye when all eyes will be upon us soon. Realistically, Gary Parent has already announced his upcoming retirement (if memory serves me correctly), so he won't be the one to clean up the mess this war of words will leave behind.

Click here to read the original Star article.

The ABC's of Offshoring

Offshoring is in a sense an extreme form of outsourcing, applied in the context of globalization. Outsourcing refers to a decision by a company to have some activities conducted outside the company – activities that are necessary to its operations, but not considered strategic or related to its distinctive strengths.

The concept of offshoring can be understood more or less narrowly. In the narrow sense, offshoring refers to the transfer of production capacity from a site within a country to a site in another country, and then importing for national consumption the goods and services that had previously been produced locally. Offshoring must not be confused with the relocation of companies and the location of production and investments abroad. Companies are relocated when the production site is moved to another country in order to be closer to that market and sell the product there. As for the location of production abroad, this is a form of foreign investment. The present paper interprets offshoring in the narrow sense of the word only.

Offshoring is actually a very old practice, which economists refer to as the specialization of labour. However, improvements in the transport of merchandise, the development of free trade, access to qualified and cheap labour, and above all the huge growth in telecommunications have accelerated offshoring so much that it now includes trade in services and has become one of the cornerstones of the global economy. Some observers have even gone so far as to say that offshoring is simply a new form of international trade.

The specialization of labour is now increasingly becoming a kind of “vertical” specialization by country for each stage of production, and this trend will increase in the future. This specialization has already seen the emergence of companies devoted to a specific stage of production, and the existence of international companies that locate different stages of production in different countries.

Frédérique Sachwald(5) has noted that the fragmentation of production processes is characteristic of modern economies. Instead of specialization in a product within a given country, we now have specialization at each stage of production within a given industry. This fragmentation has grown since the 1980s, and emerging countries are now gradually increasing their ability to perform increasingly complex tasks, including design and some development work. In short, offshoring increasingly goes hand in hand with globalization.

source: http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/PRBpubs/prb0459-e.htm

What They Say About Us - May 3

Windsor highway planned
Detroit Free Press - United States
It would create about 12000 jobs in Ontario, mostly in Windsor. The new parkway is envisioned as a way to bypass the surface streets of central Windsor that ...

Auto makers post best April sales on record
Globe and Mail - Canada
Vehicle deliveries jumped 4 per cent last month in Canada, giving auto makers their best April sales on record, but double-digit US declines for more than ...

Cable Acquires FibreWired Burlington Hydro Communications ...
FOXBusiness - USA
"This acquisition, which follows the acquisition of MaXess Networx(R) in the Windsor area, is another step in the enrichment of the Cogeco Business ...

What's next, Ontario jokes?" -- Bob Runciman
Net Newsledger - Thunder Bay,Ontario,Canada
Secondly ... the Canada-Ontario agreement, will now be well and truly honoured by Prime Minister Harper. Finally, the equalization formula has now been ...

cormorant shooting cull at 72
United Press International - USA
WINDSOR, Ontario, May 2 (UPI) -- Canadian environmental officials reported killing 72 double-crested cormorants in a campaign to save a southwestern Ontario ...

Earnings up, jobs down
Windsor Star - Ontario, Canada
In Ontario the numbers edged up slightly to 7.8 per cent from seven per cent in 2000. The number of full-time jobs in the Windsor area shrank three per cent ...