Eaton Centre shooting shakes Toronto’s sense of safety

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THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

Monday June 4, 2012 – Globe and Mail

DAKSHANA BASCARAMURTY AND ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

An eruption of gang violence in one of Toronto’s busiest crossroads – the Eaton Centre – has challenged the city’s reputation for downtown safety while drawing a promise from the mayor that “we’re going to apprehend this person, and we will convict this person.”

The gunman who fired on at least one intended target Saturday evening sprayed bullets across a crowded food court that is ringed with security cameras. Police said they have images of a suspect but did not release a description – an approach one retired homicide detective called an indication that an arrest may be imminent.

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With Charles Taylor sentence, a warning to arms suppliers

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Bassem Tallawi/Associated Press

Thursday May 31, 2012 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
For state strongmen and private corporations alike, Charles Taylor sentencing provides sober second thought about the weapons trade, observers hope

Arms suppliers, take note: Charles Taylor’s five-decade sentence means you’re responsible for atrocities committed with your weapons.

And the International Criminal Court wants experts at the University of British Columbia to help figure out what that means.

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In Afganistan’s only bowling alley, Canadian escapist inspiration

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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.

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

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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.

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Canadian doctor zeroes in on Ebola vaccine

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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.”

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Ontario doctors still in the dark on drug database

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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

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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.

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How chronic drug shortages became Canada’s new normal

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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.

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

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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.”

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

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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.

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