Results tagged “pollingbooth”

It's been two months since Mariam Makhniashvili disappeared without a trace, and Toronto police are attempting a new tactic in their search for clues: peeking into thousands of homes around the Bathurst and Eglinton area. Sixty officers began knocking on doors this week, asking for residents to let them in to root around, scouting for possible evidence. They hope to cover about six-thousand houses and apartments, and although homeowners are not legally obligated to let officers inside without a warrant, denying the request is bound to make some people feel like automatic suspects, possibly subjecting themselves to further scrutiny. As for the motivation of the Toronto Police Service, some would say that canvassing neighbourhoods has worked before, while the more cynical might wonder if the force is attempting to improve the optics of the case, given that any leads seem to have run dry. However, by knocking on doors and asking to be invited in, the police are asking the community to waive its right to privacy, albeit for an important reason. "The innocent have nothing to fear," goes the mantra, yet one of the cornerstones of human rights is the protection of privacy and prevention of arbitrary interference and intimidation. Keep calm and carry on?

Everybody panic! It's the H1N1 über-lethal supermegavirus plague! Actually, it's just the regular ol' flu, but simply a mutation that is infecting more people because most of us don't have sufficient built-in immunity for it. And while health authorities started the flu season wondering how they were going to convince people to get themselves vaccinated, the tragic death of twelve-year-old Evan Frustaglio may have been the tipping point that immediately clogged clinics and depleted vaccine supplies. Though enough vaccine is being produced, the bottleneck is in getting the vials filled and shipped quick enough, as well as prioritizing people in higher-risk demographics. Meanwhile, as all of this is going on, corporate executives are paying $2,300 each to step to the front of the line at Toronto's private Medcan Clinic, according to the Star. With three thousand doses of the H1N1 vaccine shipped to Medcan so far, these corporate clients are getting the shot as part of their "enhanced annual checkups," immediately, in the comfort of a warm doctor's office instead of waiting hours in a line with the commoners. Pay-for-privilege bypasses Ontario's single-tier health care laws for procedures considered "medically unnecessary," in the same way Ontarians can pony-up $500 for a quickie MRI across the border in Buffalo.

It's sick season again, but in the wake of scary-sounding names like swine flu and H1N1, there is increased skepticism around the subject of vaccination. Anti-vaccination activists claim that the materials used in vaccines may cause autism, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and even—in the case of the HPV vaccine—cervical cancer, and that their widespread promotion is motivated by corporate profiteering. Vaccination proponents say that the fear-mongering anti-vaccination campaigns are rooted in bad science and misinformation, and that the increasing hysteria is leaving schools and workplaces alarmingly vulnerable to serious, often life-threatening diseases. In some facilities, like hospitals, seasonal vaccination is mandatory, and while the vast majority of medical and science professionals say that the safety of vaccination is not even worth debating, there are still people who are convinced that vaccines are nothing but trouble.

Effective Monday, October 26, it will be illegal to operate any handheld device while operating a vehicle in Ontario. Following years of studies demonstrating that holding a phone to your ear while driving shows a similar level of impairment as driving drunk [PDF], the province has banned any handheld electronic device that takes a driver's attention away from the road: no dialling, no talking, and—we can't believe we have to say this—no texting or emailing. And this should be obvious, but if you're behind the wheel and need to call 911, call 911. Tickets won't be issued during a three-month education period (though police can still lay charges if talking on your beloved BlackBerry leads to other violations), but after that, it's handsfree or hands off. Recent evidence seems to show that even taking a call on a Bluetooth headset might pose a similar risk to holding a device, so expect to be entirely incommunicado on wheels some day.

It turns out that technology once only dreamed about in the back of comic books is now a reality: T-ray scanners may soon be deployed at an airport near you, and they know what you look like naked. Transport Canada is now reviewing a six-month trial of the security scanners, which are currently only voluntary and are used only when someone has set off the metal detector. The subject's body is scattered with terahertz radiation, which—unlike X-rays—are believed to be harmless to human tissue. A technician reviews the scanner results in a windowless room, and the resulting images are anonymous, incredibly unflattering, and decidedly unerotic. Images can't be stored, faces are obscured, and cameras aren't allowed in the viewing room. Still, opponents say that peering at nude bodies is even too extreme for already-excessive security theatre, and may even run afoul of child porn laws. According to a spokesperson from the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, however, 95% of travellers in the Kelowna, B.C., trial preferred it. If approved by Transport Canada and the Canadian privacy commissioner, the high-tech peepshow could be coming to Toronto airports soon.

For some, the works are underwhelming and too few and far between, yet for others, it's one of the few times when Toronto steps outside its dreary box—and that's reason enough to celebrate. You may think it makes modern art accessible to the masses, but perhaps you feel that the installations could be better. Cast a vote, and then head over to last year's poll to see how it compares.

The issue of bias in policing is a complicated one: police forces don't like to admit that ethnic bias exists, and keeping records based on ethnicity is seen as a simplified and inaccurate representation of broader cultural context. Seven years ago, following allegations of racial profiling by the Toronto Police Service, then-Chief Julian Fantino launched an extensive internal audit, yet publicly disputed media accusations of bias, stating that the study was meant to deal with "perceptions that have been created," and that "there are instances of inappropriate conduct by a small number of our members…we do not, however, have a racist or corrupt police service." The police union threatened to sue anyone who insinuated that ethnic bias existed within the force—and they did: a libel lawsuit against the Star was brought as far as the Supreme Court, and subsequently dismissed.