Classes are still cancelled for university students in Quebec as their determination to prolong a protest against a proposed tuition hike continues the National Post reports.

The students are hoping Premier Jean Charest will have a change of heart in raising the fees; he is now being critiqued by everyone.

 The Toronto Sun reported that students complain that what seems like a resolution turned out false because the offer was  misleading and they will not accept it because it’s not guaranteed.

The previous deal was to set up a council that would review university spending then pass the savings on to students. On the other hand students are expected to pay $1,778 over seven years as opposed to $1,625 over five years as was first suggested; only one vote was in favor of the deal.

“We thought we had arrived at the beginning of the end,” said Martine Desjardins, president of the moderate FEUQ student group.

“The end seemed to be postponed.”

 The heated protest has attracted more than students and the number is growing each day, Protesters came in to Quebec from other parts of the country to join the riot, some bringing their own weapons and wearing masks.

Police say some of the protesters are from different countries and some are known from previous riots.

Without fear, they stood up to police at times attacking first, police responded with tear gas and shot rubber bullets in the crowd.

More than a hundred people were arrested, the mayor is recommending banning masks because in such cases he said people want to break the law and police would like to identify them.

Organizers of the protests are feeling sad for the way it turned out and hope to plan future protest better because some supporters have only violent intentions.

Québécois party leader Pauline Marois  is urging the premier to re- visit the discussion with students immediately before a semester is lost.

Day 2 opened up with a presentation from Tower FM.

TOWER FM was unique in that it Bay Street trader Mike Wekerle as its developer. Robyn Del Unto also spoke (a Canadian artist once profiled as part of Humber’s ongoing Unsigned series)

Mike Wekerle is the mastermind behind this enterprise. So central is he that he noted “the buck stops with him.” The rest of the pitch, was people explaining how Mike Wekerle could lead the station.

Tower FM intends to showcase artists like Blue Rodeo and Kathleen Edwards.  

There was an interesting note where one of the presenters claimed that she looked for artist who she could go see “40 to 100” times and not get bored. It just struck me as a very hyperbolic rating system. That said the entire group opened with energy and as one CRTC noted “there were a lot of Type As”.  Wekerle claims that “Toronto is his town” and that his station would help expose Canadian artists who get played in the US, but have little support at home, despite “playing to sold out clubs throughout the city everynight.”

I believe this station will end up as a close second of sorts, and Wekerle will begin his radio empire somewhere nearby, before eventually working in this city. I just think it’s a matter of time. You have no idea how bad he wants it, unless you were to witness it today. 

This is not a criticism by the way; the man really cares about his community, and is very motivated to do the best work he can. However, I am presenting what I see, and I see a panel, that while impressed with this man, may not be fully cvonvinced.

As one CRTC chairperson said “It’s like you are choosing the London Olympics to make your marathon debut, you have the shoes, you have your trainers, but why should we select you to represent Canada.”

Another great quote from this presentation “You’re hunting squirrels with a bazooka.”  Sadly, I regret to inform you that this is as witty as the CRTC got today, however, they did not get any less interesting however:

As up next was

Markham FM

This may be the most agreeable of station propositions so far. I say agreeable because you really cannot disagree with their sentiment: “A relevant media voice that can serve the needs of the community.” Yeah, good luck finding anyone remotely connected to the CRTC who will disagree with that. (Ah CCD anyone?)

Anyway, their proposition is completely focused open locality, and community. They believe that Markham is a community distinct from Toronto and thus needs a distinct radio station. The only Markham media available is a paper that happens at the end of a week, and seems ridiculous when news can be received in seconds around the world.

They intend to cover traffic, and news and the arts of Markham.

The commission wanted to know however, how they would go about doing news in English most of the day, and then switch to Tamil, Farsi, and others.

They explained that they intended to hire on additional producers and third party people.

This lead to the most interesting part of the hearings so far. In discussing how they will work with associate producers through “pre-arranged agreements” the following notion was quipped:

The CRTC accused 105.1 FM of trying to act like “the quasi Markham CRTC.”

The applicant than responded with “YES.”

To which the audience replied “OHHHHHHHH”.

Sometimes I think they should just make a radio station that is just about people applying for licenses to the CRTC. There is a colourful cast of characters who produce audio gold.

In short, it appears to definitely fill a need. The CRTC just appears to be a little apprehensive over the logistics of running it. But you really can’t argue with the reasoning behind it. Why wouldn’t people in Markham want to hear about the traffic in Markham, when they never receive it from any other radio stations?

Also Markham is apparently getting a 20 thousand-seat arena that will be the biggest arena built from the ground up in North America.

Then the people from Durham gave their presentation. They came with something different as well. They noted that artists played on Easy Listening 5 years ago, are no longer played at all. They utilized cross-reference charts to indicate that TOP 40 was slowly merging with Adult Contemporary.

So they surmise that with their limited signal length, they can garner the disenfranchised baby boomers who are the only market who are increasing their radio listening habits, by drawing them away from Talk, jazz and classical and other “sophisticated” listening choices, to their own station.

One of the better quotes of the day came from this presentation:

“My new research shows me that young people don’t listen to radio. It doesn’t matter how many there are, if they do not use the medium.”

The group put together a very solid set of orations.

The CRTC’s main sticking point seems to be that The Lake (as Durham hopes to brand their new potential station), may change formats in a frenzied dollar chase. This concerns the CRTC, because they do not regulate genre.

Durham’s response is that they only want (and can only conceivably achieve) a small section of the underserved market in Toronto.

The final group to present was Stan FM. They hoped to make a station that appeals to young people, with only five employees.

I really don’t know how I am going to explain what happened next, so I’m just going to say it.  The CRTC absolutely filleted this group. They gouged them over their paper work, claiming their CCD promises were not acceptable. They then went over what they considered a lack of research. “Did you do any work, back of the envelope calculations…” “have you done anything?” Oh it was really uncomfortable. Then they just started raining down on them:

“I don’t know on what basis you think you will acquire a 5 percent tuning share.”

“Your pivets are not on the conservative side.”

“These operating costs are low.”

“You did not file any confirmation of funds to support this station.”

In regards to their CCD contribution : “Do you not see a problem?”

So we finished off the second day, with this really intense display.

I still think they should make a radio show about the CRTC application process. I’ve been riveted the whole time.

Just one fellows opinion.

Judd Buchanan

After today the Canadian penny will go down in history. This will be the last day that the Royal Canadian Mint will be manufacturing the coin

The final set of coins was minted in Winnipeg, this decision came after Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced in March at the delivery of the Provincial budget that pennies will no longer be made because it’s of little value and it’s too much cost to produce.

 A news conference was held to commemorate the demise of the penny production; Flaherty said it was very cool to strike the last coin.

In a transcript issued by the Department of finance Flaherty said “The gradual elimination of the penny will not affect transactions that are not cash transactions”

“Most transactions in Canada are non-cash like credit cards, debit cards, and e-coins, eliminate those and then go to cash transactions.” Said Flaherty

He said balancing the budget is part of the deficit reduction plan so eliminating the penny will save the Canadian Government $11 million in tax payers’ money  each year  because there is no longer a need to buy pennies from the Mint.

“We’ve looked at the issue of the cost of the penny for some time; the real problem was that people were not using them.” Said Flaherty

“That meant the mint had to keep manufacturing pennies because they were not being used in circulation.”

Flaherty said everyone who was saving their pennies in jars can now donate them to charity.

The pennies will continue to be accepted in cash transactions until the circulations run out.

April 20, 2012 : The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council determines that the comments of CFEX-FM (X92.9 FM, Calgary) regarding redheads on October of 2011, do not violate broadcast standards.


On October 2nd of last year, a radio host covered a story about a sperm bank that would no longer be accepting subsequent donations from redheaded males.

In relation to the story the following remarks were made “If we could phase out all the male, male gingers, that would be great.”

Complaints were leveled at the station, stating that the comments targeted a specific group of people.

The CBSC’s Prairie Regional Panel examined the complaint and made the following observations.

The began with the assertion that the Human Rights clause of the Code,  does not categorize people as identifiable groups based on hair colour.  These comments, the panel expounded “were not said in a particularly harsh, nasty or mean-spirited way.”

This is in contradistinction to a similar incident involving the BBC series Dr. Who that occurred in January of 2010.  The BBC apologized stating that they did not have “an anti-ginger agenda,” after the titular character examined his mirror image, while noting that he was “still not ginger” in an episode of the perennially popular Sci-Fi series.

Humber’s presidential face is changing. Christopher Whitaker has been appointed as Humber’s new president and CEO, said the board of governors. Whitaker will take over the position from current President John Davies on July 1.

Previously, Whitaker was president and CEO at St. Lawrence College, where he has been in the position since 2007. Overall, he has been working in the postsecondary industry for over 25 years.

“We are excited to welcome Chris Whitaker to the college. He has valuable experience as a college professor and administrator, and a strong interest and passion for higher education, its students and their success. He will continue a great history of leadership at Humber,” said Joan Homer, Chair, of the Humber Board of Governors.

Being named president in 2008, John Davies is retiring after being at Humber for 10 years.

Under Davies’ leadership, Humber has grown significantly, adding 11 degrees in areas such as International Development, Accounting, Journalism, Film and Media and Public Relations. He has also opened several new facilities throughout the school. Some of the facilities include the Canadian Centre for Culinary Arts and Science and the Humber Fashion Institute.