News briefs

New whistle-blower law for Manitoba health-care workers • University of Toronto to end mandatory retirement • New Federal anti-racism campaign • Help for grounded Jetsgo employees • Spam canned?

New whistle-blower law for Manitoba health-care workers

Winnipeg
— Manitoba has introduced whistle-blower legislation that requires health-care workers to report any so-called critical incidents that affect a patient’s care. The bill also protects workers from being disciplined or otherwise penalized for coming forward. Health Minister Tim Sale, said the bill is in response to the inquest into the deaths of several babies in the 1990s at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg. The inquest found that doctors took on cases outside the scope of their experience and didn’t give parents enough information.

University of Toronto to end mandatory retirement

Toronto
— The University of Toronto has reached a tentative deal with its faculty association to end the school’s policy of mandatory retirement for professors and librarians. If ratified, faculty members who turn 65 after June 30 of this year will no longer be bound by the school’s current mandatory retirement rule.

New Federal anti-racism campaign

Ottawa
— The feds have launched the country’s first ever action plan against racism that contains strategies to combat racism in the workplace. The five-year $56-million strategy includes plans to collaborate with employers, unions and other stakeholders to identify and address systemic barriers in the workplace.

Help for grounded Jetsgo employees

Toronto
— The Toronto Board of Trade held a job fair late last month for former employees of Jetsgo, who were left jobless when the airline folded. “Most of the 1,200 people who lost their jobs live here in Toronto,” said Board of Trade president Glen Grunwald. “These are highly-skilled people with valuable experience, and we would like to see them working and contributing to Toronto’s prosperity again as soon as possible.”

Spam canned?

Toronto
— For the first time in four years, Canadians report spam e-mails are in decline. Respondents to an Ipsos-Reid poll said 49 per cent of e-mail messages received in the last quarter of 2004 were spam, down from 68 per cent in the same period in 2003. Prior to this, spam volumes had been doubling every year with average of 30 spam messages per week in 2001 and 64 in 2002.

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