Subscribe by RSS

The End of Canada Post Home Delivery - The Math Just Doesn't Add Up

Jeffrey MacIntosh
Tuesday, January 21, 2014

 

Jeffrey G. MacIntosh, Special to Financial Post | January 20, 2014 7:30 PM ET


 Freeing up the market for postal delivery will allow innovative-minded competitors to try out various business models

Canada Post is on slippery footing in its proposal to end home delivery for the surviving Canadian households whose denizens can still pop their heads out the door and pluck the mail from their handy-dandy mailboxes.

Ending home delivery imposes a time penalty on each and every person who will now have to traipse to a community “super-box” to pick up their mail.  With home delivery, we are free to engage in wage-generating activities. Or we might choose, in the quaint language of economics, to “consume” our leisure time in the million and one ways in which people enjoy their non-working hours. Either way, a good estimate of the value of the time that will be lost should home delivery end is the wage of the average Canadian worker. When the dollar cost of the aggregate time poised on the brink of annihilation is toted up, the figures are truly staggering.

Beyond Refusal to Deal: A Cross-Atlantic View of Copyright, Competition, and Innovation Policies

Ariel Katz
Sunday, January 19, 2014

Conventional wisdom holds that the European Union has opted to apply its competition law to the exercise of intellectual property rights to a much greater extent than has the United States. In a new article, published in Vol. 79(1) of the Antitrust Law Journal, Paul-Erik Veel and I argue that, at least in the context of copyright protection, this conventional wisdom is false.

While European antitrust regulation of refusal to license one's intellectual property does seem much more robust and activist than U.S. antitrust regulation of similar conduct, focusing solely on one narrow aspect of antitrust doctrine—the treatment of a unilateral refusal to deal—tells less than half the story.

Guarding the angels—and more—with a vibration monitor

Friday, January 17, 2014
frescoe of angel as seen in Flavelle House

The antique finishes, the crown moulding, the hand-painted frescoes, the ornate wood carvings, these are some of the iconic finishes that we—faculty, students, staff and alumni—love so much in Flavelle House.

And these are the very things that the soon-to-be-installed vibration monitor will help protect, says Eastern’s project manager Dean Walker.

“We’ll have a computerized monitoring system set up in the basement of Flavelle, to measure the impact of vibrations, and any particle movement. The assessment will determine the zone of influence, and there will be monitoring within that zone.”

How it works: the system will send an email to the crew any time the vibrations fall in that zone range. The crew will then assess and determine an appropriate course of action to reduce the impact.

“We would investigate what’s going on specifically to cause that alert. It could be a beam coming down, a one-time occurrence, and set off the monitor. The threshold is set below the allowable limit,” says Walker. “We do not want to negatively affect the building’s history, crack any structural supports, or architectural finishes, mouldings or plaster.”

In Flavelle House, the largest vibration-creating activity will be the structural demolition of the building.

Supports up for last phase of demolition

Friday, January 10, 2014
new structural column to support demolition in Flavelle House

Interior demolition is almost completed in the former Bora Laskin Library and Flavelle House. These new structural supports are being installed to support additional cut lines in the existing building to assist in demolishing the final areas that are left. Project manager Dean Walker says supports include new footings, piers and columns.

 

closeup of footing in demolition site

 

Also this month, Walker says the rooftop heating unit will be relocated. This unit serves the attic area of Flavelle House. The roof section for its current location will soon be demolished.

Elevator down

Friday, December 20, 2013
Photo of elevator demolition in the Bora Laskin Library.

We are working on the removal of the elevator in the former Bora Laskin Library. New and more elevators will meet the highest accessibility standards in the newly renovated library and Jackman Law Building. We'll announce the exciting details and innovative technologies planned when we reach that stage of construction, and interview the sub-contractor responsible for the various installations.

This is our last post of 2013. We're taking a break from blogging over the holidays. See you in 2014!

Markingson Case: University of Minnesota sets up Inquiry, but will it be independent? And what will it do?

Trudo Lemmens
Thursday, December 19, 2013

In a previous post of October 25, I reported about the Markingson case and a letter we wrote with 6 health law, bioethics and medical scholars to the University of Minnesota Senate, which was co-signed by 175 colleagues from various North-American and international institutions. We requested that the university set up an Independent Committee of Inquiry into the death of Dan Markingson, a psychiatric patient who committed suicide while enrolled in a clinical trial at the University’s Fairview Hospital.  The case raises, as discussed in the previous post, serious concerns about the protection of very vulnerable patients in psychiatric industry-sponsored clinical trials.

Several things happened since this October 25 posting. There are positive developments, including a Senate vote in favour of an Independent Inquiry, but also concerns about what will happen next, which has motivated us to write last week a follow-up letter to the Senate.  

The Senate's Vote for an Independent Inquiry

Corporate Criminal Liability: Canada Strikes the Right Balance

Kenneth Jull
Thursday, December 19, 2013

Competing theories of corporate criminal liability range along a spectrum.  At one end is vicarious criminal liability for the acts of employees or agents.  At the opposite end of the spectrum is the "directing mind" doctrine which requires the prosecution to prove that the Board of Directors set policy that authorized the criminal conduct. The Canadian corporate criminal model is. like many things that are Canadian, in the middle of the spectrum, based on the concept of a "senior officer". 

Two recent cases demonstrate how the Canadian model works in practice.  Global Fuels (R. c. Pétroles Global Inc.2013 QCCS 4262  leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal granted (2013 QCCA 1604))  was convicted of price fixing where a regional manager participated in collusion and let territory managers participate in collusion with his knowledge without interference. The Ontario Court of Appeal in Metron Construction (2013 ONCA 541) has affirmed that the actions of an independent agent who manages an important aspect of a corporations' activities and qualifies as a senior officer may result in a conviction of that corporation for criminal negligence causing death where the agent demonstrates a marked and substantial departure from the standard that could be expected of a reasonably prudent person.

Hard-hat tour photos

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Here are some of the areas our alumni viewed of the demotion site in Flavelle House during our first hard-hat tour. We'll be planning more construction site tours in the next couple of months. Check our website and e-news for further information.

Demolition site, partial knocked out wall, people touring the site

 

 

Demolished classroom site with rubbish pile on the steps where chairs used to be.

 

Photos: Michelle Yee

The work goes on

Monday, December 16, 2013
Demolition site showing piles of rubble, old desks from the library

Diversion piles are scattered throughout the demolition site in the former Bora Laskin Library. Anything and everything that can be recycled and diverted from landfills is meticulously set aside for pickup, and the interior continues to be prepped for demolition.

 

 

Demolition site with diverted piles of old pipes and wire cables.

 

Demolition site with diverted piles of metal beams

 

Photos: Michelle Yee

Faculty's Renewal Project recognized with Canadian Architect Award

Thursday, December 12, 2013
Rendering of the Jackman Law Building and new library, view from Hoskin Street.

We're so thrilled to hear that the Faculty of Law's Renewal Project, which includes the stunning new Jackman Law Building, has been recognized with a prominent national design award: a 2013 Canadian Architect Award of Excellence.

Read our full story here.

 

Faculty Blog
Subscribe by RSS