CSI Blog & Newsroom

Photographer: Luis Llerena

“When Sean Wilson needed to make his first life-or-death decision as a doctor, it wasn’t his medical school training he called upon. It was his time spent in Canada’s infantry that helped him. 

Originally from northern Ontario, Wilson had just moved his family to Montreal to start work as a resident family doctor, a junior physician learning the ins and outs of a specific medical discipline,” wrote Blair Bigham for CBC News on Sunday February 26, 2017.

Bigham continued, “But most new doctors don’t have a military background that comes with special training in resiliency, and many are overwhelmed by the responsibility of caring for sick patients in busy hospitals. That stress leads to burnout and depression. 

A 2015 review in the Journal of the American Medical Association found one in three residents is depressed, and that physicians experience higher-than-average rates of suicide.

That looks set to change, however, as many Canadian hospitals and medical schools adapt psychological training originally developed by the U.S. Navy SEALs to help soldiers stay calm under fire, similar to training Wilson received during his time in the Canadian Forces.”

Read the full article here.

Photographer: Markus Spiske

“The head of Canada’s financial crime watchdog agency is second-guessing his decision last year to withhold the name of a bank — which CBC Investigates has identified as Manulife Bank of Canada — fined $1.15 million for not reporting hundreds of transactions it was obligated to report under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act.  

The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) received an earful from angry Canadians upset that it wouldn’t share the name of the bank — the first in Canada to be penalized under the country’s expanded money laundering rules, which were amended in 2002 to include terrorist financing,” wrote John Nicol, Dave Seglins and Steve Niles for CBC News on Monday February 27, 2017.

Nicol, Seglins and Niles continued, “CBC News sources confirmed the case involves Manulife Bank and its failure to report 1,174 international electronic money transfers, 45 cash transactions involving at least $10,000 each, as well as one suspicious transaction.

Manulife Bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of Manulife Financial Corporation, a $47-billion insurance and financial services company. The bank doesn’t have physical branches and sells its products primarily through financial advisors.

Manulife Financial issued a brief written statement Monday afternoon calling the infractions “administrative lapses.”

Read the full article here.

Photographer: Leeroy

“Bob White, the Canadian labour leader who led the Canadian Auto Workers union’s split from its American counterpart and later became that union’s founding president and the president of the Canadian Labour Congress, has died at age 81.

White died in Kincardine, Ont., on Sunday, according to his family,” wrote Solomon Isreal for CBC News on Monday February 20, 2017.

Isreal continued, “White was “a wonderful father” who was always patient, supportive, and proud of his children, his youngest child Robyn White told CBC News.

White left school when he was 15 years old to start working in the same factory as his father, said his daughter, and got involved with the union even though his father warned him not to.

“And very shortly after, he went to a union meeting, and was elected shop steward, and that was that,” she said.

“It spoke to him … there was just this invigorating passion, this cause, this fight there, and he was hooked.”

Despite leaving school at a young age, White’s daughter said he was “a voracious reader” who was highly motivated to learn throughout his career. Inspired by his wife, Marilyne, White also developed a passion for women’s rights, and later focused on child labour issues.” 

Read the full article here.

Photographer: Nicolai Berntsen

“Suspicion of central banking has a long history in the United States.

When the Federal Reserve was founded in 1913, more than 200 years after its British equivalent the Bank of England, strident voices said it was a bad idea.

After the Second World War, the Fed established its reputation as the world`s most powerful central bank with the globe`s most tradeable currency. Voices of opposition were relegated to the fringe”, wrote Don Pittis for CBC News on February 15, 2017.

Pittis continued, “It’s unclear if her words will be effective.

More than once Yellen was asked about Trump’s recent statement connecting banking regulation with reduced lending.

He said he had personal experience.”

Read the full article here.

Photographer: Khara Woods

“Frank Quinto wakes each work day at 5:30 a.m. He’s “suited and booted” by 6 a.m. and at the VIA station near his Brantford home by 7 a.m. By the time his train arrives at Union Station at 8:40 a.m. he’s read his e-mail, prepped for meetings and put on his self-titled professional “game face.” He transfers to the TTC for the 10-minute trip to his government office at Yonge and Bloor and arrives at his desk just before 9 a.m”, wrote Oliver Moore for the Globe and Mail on February 3, 2017.

Moore continued, “He leaves at 4:55 p.m. to catch the 5:30 VIA train home. There’s no GO train to Brantford, just the option of a bus from the Aldershot station in Burlington. He’s back home by 7 p.m.

Four hours a day commuting, five days a week. “Rinse and repeat for nearly seven years,” he says. It’s a daily grind, but one that lets him keep his downtown-based job while staying in the community in which he grew up, where the average price of a home sold in December was barely $300,000.

Toronto’s escalating housing market – up 22.3 per cent in January from a year earlier – is challenging not only buyers, but also the region’s infrastructure. Growth is being forced farther afield and lengthy commutes seem increasingly the norm. Where Hamilton used to seem far, communities even farther away are seeing new interest from buyers.

It’s no longer unthinkable that masses of workers will be travelling daily from Niagara Falls or Cobourg. And predicting if and when that will happen is the challenge for transportation and city planners trying to calculate how the Golden Horseshoe will grow and move in the coming decades.”

Read the full article here.

Oliver Moore – URBAN TRANSPORTATION REPORTER

Photographer: Jesse Orrico

“NEURAL NETWORKS ARE all the rage in Silicon Valley, infusing so many internet services with so many forms of artificial intelligence. But as good as they may be at recognizing cats in your online photos, AI researchers know that neural networks are still quite flawed, so much so that some wonder whether these pattern recognition systems are a viable path to more advanced—and more reliable—forms of AI,” wrote Cade Metz for wired.com on February 3, 2017.

Metz continued, “Able to learn tasks by analyzing vast amounts of data, neural networks power everything from face recognition at Facebook to translation at Microsoft to internet search at Google. They’re beginning to help chatbots learn the art of conversation. And they’re part of the movement toward driverless cars and other autonomous machines. But because they can’t make sense of the world without help from such large amounts of carefully labelled data, they aren’t suited to everything. And AI researchers have limited insight into why neural networks make particular decisions. They are, in many ways, black boxes. This opacity could cause serious problems: What if a self-driving car runs someone down and the world wants to know why?”

Read the full article here.

Cade Metz is a WIRED senior staff writer covering Google, Facebook, artificial intelligence, bitcoin, data centers, computer chips, programming languages, and other ways the world is changing.

Photographer: Alejandro Escamilla

“President Trump may not be a big reader, but he’s been a boon for sales of dystopian literature. Amid our thirst for adult coloring books and stories about missing girls and reincarnated puppies, some grim old classics are speaking to us with new urgency. Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451 ,” Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World ” and Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale ” have all risen up the latest paperback bestseller list,” wrote Ron Charles for The Washington Post on January 25, 2017.

Charles continued, “But by far the greatest beneficiary of our newly piqued national anxiety is George Orwell’s “1984.” 

Soon after senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said on Sunday that the administration was issuing “alternative facts,” Orwell’s classic novel spiked to No. 1 on Amazon. Like officials from the Ministry of Truth, Conway and White House press secretary Sean Spicer doubled down on Trump’s fanciful contention that his inauguration drew the “largest audience ever,” despite a Web-full of photographic evidence to the contrary. The Twittersphere responded with allusions to “1984,” and Penguin announced plans for a special 75,000-copy reprint , noting that since the inauguration, sales for the novel have increased by 9,500 percent.”

Read the full article here.

“OTTAWA — If there is such a thing as unwelcome good news, President Trump may have handed some to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada on Tuesday when he revived a cross-border oil pipeline project,” wrote Ian Austen and Clifford Krauss for The New York Times on January 25, 2017.

Austen and Krauss continued, “The move is likely to complicate a delicate balancing act Mr. Trudeau has been trying to keep up: He has long maintained that Canada needs to develop its energy industry, but he also stands for aggressively cutting the country’s carbon emissions.

The pipeline, known as Keystone XL, is meant to help carry crude oil from the oil sands of Alberta to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. The Obama administration blocked the project for environmental reasons — and in doing so, spared Mr. Trudeau from having to reckon with the consequences of building it.”

Read the full article here.

Ian Austen reported from Ottawa, and Clifford Krauss from Houston.

A version of this article appears in print on January 26, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Canada’s Leader in Bind Over New Pipeline Plan. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe