Globe and Mail

In Afganistan’s only bowling alley, Canadian escapist inspiration

amp Leave a comment

Muhammed Muheisen/The Associated Press

Monday, May 28, 2012 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

There’s no shortage of strategies to improve life in Afghanistan. But this is the only one centred around rolling heavy neon balls down wooden lanes, sending white pins flying.

Faced with a hometown she couldn’t recognize, Meena Rahmani drew inspiration from her life as an immigrant in suburban Canada: She opened a bowling alley.

The Strikers is Afghanistan’s first and, so far, only bowling alley. If Ms. Rahmani has her way, it won’t be for long.

Continue reading →

As Canada shutters old prisons, its penal system is stretched to capacity

amp Leave a comment

Photo by Kevin Van Paassen/Globe and Mail

Thursday, May 10, 2012 – Globe and Mail

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
Inmates in Canada’s federal prisons have been sleeping in trailers, interview rooms, family visiting spaces and gymnasiums, while the percentage of prisoners sharing cells built for one has nearly doubled in under three years, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail.

The documents, obtained from access to information requests, suggest a penal system stretched to capacity. Canada’s prison population has been rising since 2005 after years of steady decline, growing 7 per cent between March 31, 2011 and May 1, 2012.

Part of the latest increase can be attributed to the government’s tough-on-crime agenda. At the same time, the government will lose 1,000 beds after it closes aging penal facilities such as Kingston Penitentiary and Leclerc Institution in Laval, Que., but says it will more than make up the difference with new units.

Continue reading →

Canadian doctor zeroes in on Ebola vaccine

amp Leave a comment

Gary Kobinger has been chasing vaccines since childhood.

Growing up in Quebec City in the early 1990s, he remembers being galvanized to action by documentaries about people infected with HIV-AIDS – back when the illness was still new, mysterious and terrifying.

“In my mind, as a teenager, this was unacceptable. So I decided this was where I would put my energy.”

Continue reading →

Ontario doctors still in the dark on drug database

amp Leave a comment

Remember back when Ontario rolled out an online narcotics-prescription database – one meant to track exactly who is prescribing what to whom? The idea is to prevent “double-doctoring” and ensuring that doctors, pharmacists and Health Ministry officials ensure that people who need drugs are getting them.

The database was in testing phase as of November, 2011 and was supposed to be operational early this year. But the people prescribing the drugs still can’t access it. That means they have no idea what other drugs a potential patient could be taking, or was taking. In some cases, it means patients can’t get the drugs they need.

Toronto doctor Irfan Dhalla said doctors still have no idea when they’re going to get in on this database – but they’d really, really like to.

Calls for supervised injection sites meet resistance in Ontario

amp 1 Comment

Photo by John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail

Thursday, April 12, 2012 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

TORONTO — The battle over whether to give addicts a safe place to inject has moved to Ontario from the West Coast.

When the Supreme Court of Canada handed Vancouver’s supervised injection site a legal victory late last year by denying the federal government’s attempt to shutter it, many observers expected the ruling to give rise to similar sites across Canada.

Not so fast.

Continue reading →

How chronic drug shortages became Canada’s new normal

amp Leave a comment

Karen Reeves, who was diagnosed with epilepsy 11 years ago, is photographed at her home in Waterloo, Ont. Thursday, March 29, 2012. Reeves has struggled to get epilepsy drugs and is now forced to travel to Florida every 3 months to fill her prescription.
Photo by Kevin Van Paassen/The Globe and Mail

Wednesday, April 11, 2012 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY and KIM MACKRAEL

When the only drug that effectively stopped Karen Reeves’s seizures became unavailable in Canada, she didn’t find out until her pharmacist couldn’t fill her prescription – the medication wasn’t there. Replacement shipments never showed up.

Welcome to the new normal of prescription drug supplies.

Continue reading →

In Jason Kenney’s immigration system, the labour market calls the shots

amp Leave a comment

Photo by Fernando Morales/The Globe and Mail

Thursday, April 5, 2012 – Globe and Mail

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

Jason Kenney has had it with incremental measures.

“It frustrates the hell out of me,” the Immigration Minister told The Globe and Mail’s editorial board on Wednesday. “We’re bringing hundreds of thousands of people into the country to end up, many of them, unemployed or underemployed in an economy where there are acute labour shortages.”

Continue reading →

Canadian Cynthia Vanier’s arrest a success in international security co-operation, Mexico’s Calderon says

amp Leave a comment

Photo by Carolyn Kaster/AP

Wednesday, April 4, 2012 – Globe and Mail

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

Mexican President Felipe Calderon cites the arrest of Canadian consultant Cynthia Vanier on accusations of trying to smuggle one of Moammar Gadhafi’s sons out of Libya as a prime example of successful security co-operation between Mexico, Canada and the United States.

Thing is, Canada has yet to elucidate exactly what its role was in Ms. Vanier’s arrest and the investigation leading up to it – and her lawyer, among others, would really like to know.

Continue reading →

Canada’s pandemic response needs work, federal health agency says

amp Leave a comment

Photo by Henry Romero/Reuters

April 3, 2012 – Globe and Mail

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

There are still serious shortcomings in the way public-health bodies communicate with physicians, nurses and pharmacists on the front lines of a pandemic, says the Public Health Agency of Canada.

And almost three years after a flu pandemic put the country on high alert, the federal agency has put out a call for a new strategy to improve communication with clinicians during pandemic response.

Continue reading →

A penny spurned: Anatomy of Canada’s soon-to-be defunct one-cent coin

amp Leave a comment

Susanna Blunt, who designed the latest queen on Canada's coins, seen here at Capilano University, in North Vancouver.
Photo by John Lehmann/Globe and Mail

Saturday, March 31, 2012 – Globe and Mail

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
Pity the penny: In the past 15 years it’s lost its copper, its usage and its cost-effectiveness – the butt of jokes and bane of neat freaks well before its end became official in Thursday’s federal budget.

Despite its lowly monetary status, the penny is a high-maintenance bit of metal. It is by far the most expensive Canadian coin to produce, relative to its value. At a cost of a little over 1.6 cents per penny, it’s the only piece of currency in the country that now costs more than its value to make.

While the news of the penny’s phase-out came as a surprise even to the Royal Canadian Mint, the analysts and coin-crafters in charge of Canada’s money say they’ve known for years its days were numbered.

Continue reading →