Factors influencing funding decisions by elected politicians at the state/provincial level : a case study of public libraries in Canada

The purpose of this study was to determine factors (internal and external) that influenced Canadian provincial (state) politicians when making funding decisions about public libraries. Using the case study methodology, Canadian provincial/state level funding for public libraries in the 2009-10 fiscal year was examined. After reviewing funding levels across the country, three jurisdictions were chosen for the case: British Columbia's budget revealed dramatically decreased funding, Alberta's budget showed dramatically increased funding, and Ontario's budget was unchanged from the previous year. The primary source of data for the case was a series of semi-structured interviews with elected officials and senior bureaucrats from the three jurisdictions. An examination of primary and secondary documents was also undertaken to help set the political and economic context as well as to provide triangulation for the case interviews. The data were analysed to determine whether Cialdini's theory of influence (2001) and specifically any of the six tactics of influence (i.e, commitment and consistency, authority, liking, social proof, scarcity and reciprocity) were instrumental in these budget processes. Findings show the principles of "authority", "consistency and commitment" and "liking" were relevant, and that "liking" were especially important to these decisions. When these decision makers were considering funding for public libraries, they most often used three distinct lenses: the consistency lens (what are my values? what would my party do?), the authority lens (is someone with hierarchical power telling me to do this? are the requests legitimate?), and most importantly, the liking lens (how much do I like and know about the requester?). These findings are consistent with Cialdini's theory, which suggests the quality of some relationships is one of six factors that can most influence a decision maker. The small number of prior research studies exploring the reasons for increases or decreases in public library funding allocation decisions have given little insight into the factors that motivate those politicians involved in the process and the variables that contribute to these decisions. No prior studies have examined the construct of influence in decision making about funding for Canadian public libraries at any level of government. Additionally, no prior studies have examined the construct of influence in decision making within the context of Canadian provincial politics. While many public libraries are facing difficult decisions in the face of uncertain funding futures, the ability of the sector to obtain favourable responses to requests for increases may require a less simplistic approach than previously thought. The ability to create meaningful connections with individuals in many communities and across all levels of government should be emphasised as a key factor in influencing funding decisions.

Developing national level informatics competencies for undergraduate nurses : methodological approaches from Australia and Canada

Health information systems are being implemented in countries by governments and regional health authorities in an effort to modernize healthcare. With these changes, there has emerged a demand by healthcare organizations for nurses graduating from college and university programs to have acquired nursing informatics competencies that would allow them to work in clinical practice settings (e.g. hospitals, clinics, home care etc). In this paper we examine the methods employed by two different countries in developing national level nursing informatics competencies expected of undergraduate nurses prior to graduation (i.e. Australia, Canada). This work contributes to the literature by describing the science and methods of nursing informatics competency development at a national level.

Institutional specifics and unemployment insurance eligibility in Canada : how sensitive are employment duration effects?

The paper examines the influence of unemployment insurance on the duration of employment spells in Canada using the 1988–90 Labour Market Activity Survey. The primary focus of the paper is to evaluate whether estimated UI effects are sensitive to the degree to which institutional rules and regulations governing UI eligibility and entitlement are explicitly modelled. The key result of the paper is that it is indeed important to allow for institutional detail when estimating unemployment insurance effects. Estimates using simple proxies for eligibility indicate small, often insignificant UI effects. The size and significance of the effects rise as more realistic versions of the variables are adopted. The estimates using the eligibility variables incorporating the greatest level of institutional detail suggest that a jump in the hazard rate by a factor of 2.3 may not be an unreasonable estimate of the effect.

Current practice in nutrition assessment for the management of Parkinson’s disease in Australia and Canada

AIM: To document and compare current practice in nutrition assessment of Parkinson’s disease by dietitians in Australia and Canada in order to identify priority areas for review and development of practice guidelines and direct future research. METHODS: An online survey was distributed to DAA members and PEN subscribers through their email newsletters. The survey captured current practice in the phases of the Nutrition Care Plan. The results of the assessment phase are presented here. RESULTS: Eighty-four dietitians responded. Differences in practice existed in the choice of nutrition screening and assessment tools, including appropriate BMI ranges. Nutrition impact symptoms were commonly assessed, but information about Parkinson’s disease medication interactions were not consistently assessed. CONCLUSIONS: he variation in practice related to the use of screening and assessment methods may result in the identification of different goals for subsequent interventions. Even more practice variation was evident for those items more specific to Parkinson’s disease and may be due to the lack of evidence to guide practice. Further research is required to support decisions for nutrition assessment of Parkinson’s disease.

Contact lens prescribing in Canada 2011

For the past 12 years, the International Contact Lens Prescribing Survey Consortium has sent surveys to a selection of Canadian optometrists in order to collect information on the contact lenses they fit and basic demographic data of the patients. Canada is one of about 40 countries that contributes to the global study and while annual reviews of the study data are presented, information published for any one market is limited due to the size of the dataset.1 This manuscript presents a more detailed analysis on the Canadian market for 2011.

Crime, justice, and inequality : Oh Canada, where art thou?

Since Canada’s colonial beginnings, it has become increasingly riddled with classism, racism,sexism, and other damaging outcomes of structured social inequality. In 2006, however,many types of social injustice were turbo‐charged under the federal leadership of the Harper government. For example, a recent southern Ontario study shows that less than half of working people between the ages of 25 and 65 have full‐time jobs with benefits. The main objective of this paper is to critique the dominant Canadian political economic order and the pain and suffering it has caused for millions of people. Informed by left realism and other progressive ways of knowing, I also suggest some ways of turning the tide.

Woman abuse in Canada : sociological reflections on the past, suggestions for the future

Woman abuse in Canada started receiving much sociological attention in the mid-1980s. This article describes past scholarly achievements, assesses current contributions, and suggests progressive ways of responding to future challenges. Special attention is given to how broader political economic forces help shape and constrain research on a variety of highly injurious male-to-female assaults that occur in private settings.

Book Review : "The Media Gaze: Representations of Diversities in Canada by Augie Fleras". Vancouver and Toronto: UBC Press, 2011.

The Media Gaze effectively shatters the assumption that Canada, in all its political correctness, is a cultural mosaic free of discrimination and prejudice. While great strides have been made to reduce blatant racism and sexism in Canadian media, Fleras illustrates how discriminatory and oppressive discourses are still very present in news, television, and film.He brings to light the structural, institutional, and practice-oriented means by which the media is systemically biased toward privileging mainstream audiences while misrepresenting minority groups in the public eye...

Give way to great charms of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

A travel article about Halifax, Nova Scotia. MOTORISTS in Nova Scotia are so polite it's almost a shame to leave, writes Kari Gislason. By the end of my second day in Halifax, I begin to develop deep concerns about the safety of the locals, or the Haligonians as they're known. I wonder how they ever leave their fair city or, perhaps more to the point, how they ever make it back...

Food trail through Jasper, Lake Louise and Calgary in Canada

A travel article about food and landscape in Alberta. IN THE remote islands off Canada's east coast, I was given an old rule of survival: If you get lost in the forest, follow the bear tracks and eat what the bears eat, except skunk cabbage. There was no second rule for what to do about the bear, should he also appear. No matter. "Do this and you'll live," it says, "just as we did in the past."...

Follow the lighthouse route in Nova Scotia, Canada

Within half an hour of leaving Halifax Airport I managed to get myself lost. I noticed an exit sign for St Margaret’s Bay and, despite written instructions to the contrary, it sounded like the right way to go. But I was on the Lighthouse Route and on my way back to Halifax...

Fred’s Flow (Canada) and Murphy Well (Australia) : thick komatiitic lava flows with contrasting compositions, emplacement mechanisms and water contents

Two Archaean komatiitic flows, Fred’s Flow in Canada and the Murphy Well Flow in Australia, have similar thicknesses (120 and 160 m) but very different compositions and internal structures. Their contrasting differentiation profiles are keys to determine the cooling and crystallization mechanisms that operated during the eruption of Archaean ultramafic lavas. Fred’s Flow is the type example of a thick komatiitic basalt flow. It is strongly differentiated and consists of a succession of layers with contrasting textures and compositions. The layering is readily explained by the accumulation of olivine and pyroxene in a lower cumulate layer and by evolution of the liquid composition during downward growth of spinifex-textured rocks within the upper crust. The magmas that erupted to form Fred’s Flow had variable compositions, ranging from 12 to 20 wt% MgO, and phenocryst contents from 0 to 20 vol%. The flow was emplaced by two pulses. A first ~20-m-thick pulse was followed by another more voluminous but less magnesian pulse that inflated the flow to its present 120 m thickness. Following the second pulse, the flow crystallized in a closed system and differentiated into cumulates containing 30–38 wt% MgO and a residual gabbroic layer with only 6 wt% MgO. The Murphy Well Flow, in contrast, has a remarkably uniform composition throughout. It comprises a 20-m-thick upper layer of fine-grained dendritic olivine and 2–5 vol% amygdales, a 110–120 m intermediate layer of olivine porphyry and a 20–30 m basal layer of olivine orthocumulate. Throughout the flow, MgO contents vary little, from only 30 to 33 wt%, except for the slightly more magnesian basal layer (38–40 wt%). The uniform composition of the flow and dendritic olivine habits in the upper 20 m point to rapid cooling of a highly magnesian liquid with a composition like that of the bulk of the flow. Under equilibrium conditions, this liquid should have crystallized olivine with the composition Fo94.9, but the most magnesian composition measured by electron microprobe in samples from the flow is Fo92.9. To explain these features, we propose that the parental liquid contained around 32 wt% MgO and 3 wt% H2O. This liquid degassed during the eruption, creating a supercooled liquid that solidified quickly and crystallized olivine with non-equilibrium textures and compositions.

Reconstruction of a multi-vent kimberlite eruption from deposit and host rock characteristics: Jericho kimberlite, Nunavut, Canada

The Jericho kimberlite (173.1. ±. 1.3. Ma) is a small (~. 130. ×. 70. m), multi-vent system that preserves products from deep (>. 1. km?) portions of kimberlite vents. Pit mapping, drill core examination, petrographic study, image analysis of olivine crystals (grain size distributions and shape studies), and compositional and mineralogical studies, are used to reconstruct processes from near-surface magma ascent to kimberlite emplacement and alteration. The Jericho kimberlite formed by multiple eruptions through an Archean granodiorite batholith that was overlain by mid-Devonian limestones ~. 1. km in thickness. Kimberlite magma ascended through granodiorite basement by dyke propagation but ascended through limestone, at least in part, by locally brecciating the host rocks. After the first explosive breakthrough to surface, vent deepening and widening occurred by the erosive forces of the waxing phase of the eruption, by gravitationally induced failures as portions of the vent margins slid into the vent and, in the deeper portions of the vent (>. 1. km), by scaling, as thin slabs burst from the walls into the vent. At currently exposed levels, coherent kimberlite (CK) dykes (<. 40. cm thick) are found to the north and south of the vent complex and represent the earliest preserved in-situ products of Jericho magmatism. Timing of CK emplacement on the eastern side of the vent complex is unclear; some thick CK (15-20. m) may have been emplaced after the central vent was formed. Explosive eruptive products are preserved in four partially overlapping vents that are roughly aligned along strike with the coherent kimberlite dyke. The volcaniclastic kimberlite (VK) facies are massive and poorly sorted, with matrix- to clast-supported textures. The VK facies fragmented by dry, volatile-driven processes and were emplaced by eruption column collapse back into the volcanic vents. The first explosive products, poorly preserved because of partial destruction by later eruptions, are found in the central-east vent and were formed by eruption column collapse after the vent was largely cleared of country rock debris. The next active vent was either the north or south vent. Collapse of the eruption column, linked to a vent widening episode, resulted in coeval avalanching of pipe margin walls into the north vent, forming interstratified lenses of country rock-rich boulder breccias in finer-grained volcaniclastic kimberlite. South vent kimberlite has similar characteristics to kimberlite of the north vent and likely formed by similar processes. The final eruptive phase formed olivine-rich and moderately sorted deposits of the central vent. Better sorting is attributed to recycling of kimberlite debris by multiple eruptions through the unconsolidated volcaniclastic pile and associated collapse events. Post-emplacement alteration varies in intensity, but in all cases, has overprinted the primary groundmass and matrix, in CK and VK, respectively. Erosion has since removed all limestone cover.