Patrick Doyon Dept: Both Philippe Falardeau and Patrick Doyon showed up at Sartorialto on Papineau Ave. last week for separate tuxedo fittings, and both looked like any young guy in the Plateau: hiking boots, parkas, jeans and knapsacks were the costume du jour, according to Montreal Gazette. "It's an initiation. It's like losing your virginity. But the difference is there are spectators here and two Montreal Oscar contenders will be walking down the red carpet in Los Angeles Sunday with a little bit of custom confidence. "The tux is something new to me. I'm dressed like a teenager. This man is going to dress me like a man,'' Falardeau said, pointing to Marc Patrick Chevalier, owner of the shop. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Margaret Burnett Dept: The society has reaffirmed its stance on the practice in a new policy statement published in the February edition of the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Canada, according to Vancouver Sun. "We want to raise awareness that there are more and more women we are seeing with this procedure because of immigration," Dr. Margaret Burnett, head of the society's Social and Sexual Issues Committee, said and the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada is calling for a cultural change in attitudes toward female genital mutilation, a practice it calls a human rights violation. The clarification was necessary to ensure that all Canadian doctors know that the practice is illegal and "unacceptable" here. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Productivity Improvements Dept: All those resources can be a fool s game. Pumping and digging and cutting can keep the country comfortable, but they do little to address the country s biggest challenge a sagging competitive position. All those natural resources soak up capital; they usually don t require much innovation or processing, according to Globe and Mail. Canada has one of the worst productivity records in the industrialized world. Upon productivity improvements household incomes depend, not burgeoning household debt. When you ask why median household incomes stagnated for a long time in Canada, and why the lowest-income Canadians have gotten poorer, one reason among many is low productivity and canadians are so damn lucky. We just dig and pump and cut and ship, and we never seem to run out. We just hope commodities prices remain high. The Harper government, possessed of a majority government, seems to have its mind around elements of the long-term challenge. Whether it can persuade the country to confront them is another matter, in part because this government doesn t like visionary politics, and in part because of its relentless partisanship, which waxes so many ears beyond its own supporters. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Canada Dept: Varvarigos, 37, sold his share of a restaurant and came to Canada with hopes for a better future, according to Vancouver Sun. " Canada is a better environment with better chances for people who would like to do something in their life, to have a family, to have their job and to get paid for that and to look straight to the future," he explained and former restaurateur George Varvarigos has started a new career in auto sales in Toronto after immigrating from Greece seven months ago. "Everybody works hard for every daily expense ... and the bills they have to pay," he said. "Nobody is lazy ... So they're fighters." (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Police Officers Dept: More than two dozen current and former law enforcement officials in the United States including police officers, prosecutors and judges -- are warning the Canadian government against mandatory minimum sentences for minor marijuana offences. In a letter addressed to "The Senate of Canada" and copied to both the prime minister and provincial premiers, a group calling itself Law Enforcement Against Prohibition LEAP advocates for the "taxation and regulation of marijuana in Canada." (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Bashir Lazhar Dept: She's kidding, the playwright quickly adds, but she also points out she believes teachers have a huge responsibility and need more energy than she has, according to CTV. A lot of people have been admiring Bashir Lazhar, from his first appearance in 2007 in de la Cheneliere's one-character play to his leap to the big screen in "Monsieur Lazhar," director Philippe Falardeau's Oscar-nominated adaptation of her work. "No!" she says with a broad smile over a cappuccino in a trendy Montreal cafe. "My God, I would cry all day, every day." "I admire them a lot," she said. "I had a lot of compassion for my teachers. I would never tease them or anything because I felt I had the responsibility of showing them I was interested -- even when I wasn't." (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Jason Kenney Dept: Kenney s system-abusing bogus refugees include those fleeing discrimination, oppression and hardship not quite horrific enough to satisfy the standards required by the jurisprudence defining and applying the refugee definition. Kenney does not mention that close to 40 per cent of the claimants were recognized as genuine refugees last year. Like falling crime statistics, that is an inconvenient truth for this government. Kenney manages to convert the fact that the system does not confer refugee protection on all who seek it into evidence of system failure, according to The Star. Now, with a majority government in hand, the minister proposes to change the law to make reality bend to his vision. There is no longer a need to treat refugee claimants with basic dignity, or to provide them with a fair opportunity to tell their story. Why bother, since the minister has already determined for all of us that they are bogus and jason Kenney, the minister of Citizenship and Immigration, knows who the real refugees are. Or at least he knows which ones are bogus : refugee claimants from Mexico or Sri Lanka or Hungary are bogus. Bogus refugees include those who use smugglers to overcome the barriers to lawfully reaching countries like Canada which, by signing the refugee convention, have promised not to send back persons fleeing persecution. Kenney made his views clear to voters by highlighting the issue of bogus claims in the last election. And he made them known to the members of the Immigration and Refugee Board the decision-makers who are tasked with determining individual cases based on the evidence, and whose reappointments depend on Kenney s opinion of them. And just to be sure that his views were respected, he took the unprecedented step last year of telling the justices of the Federal Court to stop thwarting his efforts to reform refugee policy by holding government officials legally accountable for their actions. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

UforChange Dept: Launched three years ago with funding from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, UforChange offers young artists 16 29 who live in and around the highrise St. James Town neighbourhood the break they need, according to The Star. UforChange does it through free workshops, five days a week, with free materials. The first phase focuses on arts education and life skills: Participants get a chance to learn from working professionals in a field that interests them, such as fashion, dance, music and production, drama, writing, graphic and visual arts, film or photography all with state-of-the-art equipment and a pilot project that gives low-income and newcomer youth an opportunity to tap into the artist within is transforming a long-neglected Toronto neighbourhood from the inside out. Sean Roman, the program s arts and media manager, sees UforChange as a place where young people living in a diverse highrise community with a high unemployment rate can re-boot their lives. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Immigrant Women Dept: "I think there's a greater understanding that we need to be culturally competent when we're offering treatment for women. We see a lot more immigrant women from Africa ... and many of them have had this cutting procedure done when they were children," said Dr. Margaret Burnett, chair of the social and sexual issues committee, according to CTV. Medical students, for the most part, don't know what to do when offering care for these women, Burnett indicated and the recommendation is part of a policy statement on the subject published in the February edition of the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada. "So what that means for us as physicians in Canada is we're kind of confronted with this kind of anatomical difference, and we need to know how to treat them," she said Tuesday in an interview from Winnipeg. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Valentine's Day Dept: Last week's explosions in the Thai capital announced the apparent arrival of international terrorists in this Southeast Asian nation, revealing a plot allegedly aimed against Israeli diplomats. But big questions remain about who was behind the plot, and why, according to CBC. Was it part of a covert tit-for-tat war in which Iranians are hitting back at Israel for allegedly killing Iranian nuclear scientists in Tehran? Were the assailants part of a global terror network? If they were professional assassins, why were they so inept and it began when three men blew up their house accidentally on Valentine's Day in Bangkok. It ended with a gory scene that looked more like Baghdad: A bloodied, would-be bomber with severed legs moaning on a glass-strewn sidewalk after another botched blast. So far, three Iranian citizens have been detained in the case, though police say they haven't revealed anything substantial under interrogation. A Thai court issued an arrest warrant for an additional Iranian suspect this week, and on Tuesday, police were investigating the discovery of stickers plastered on Bangkok utility poles and billboards that may have marked routes for intended victims. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.