Blog Posts by Steve Mertl

The Conservative government is getting another tongue-lashing from scientists over its latest cut to federally funded research.

This time, it's the Experimental Lakes Area getting the ax.

The program used a region of 58 freshwater lakes near Kenora, in western Ontario, where scientists conducted experiments on the effects of pollution. It was included in budget cuts to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Winnipeg Free Press reported.

Some 40 department employees, including biologists, chemists and other scientists, will be laid off at its Winnipeg regional office, the Free Press said.

The program is no longer "aligned with the department's mandate and is not responding to our research priorities," federal officials said, adding Ottawa hopes universities and provincial governments will pick up the slack to fund continued work.

"It makes more sense to allow it to be owned and operated by those who will benefit from this unique research facility," Erin Filliter, spokeswoman for

Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, sign the Canadian government's guest books at CFB Gagetown, New …The ruddy-cheeked, bemedalled balding man who reminisced about his days training to be a helicopter pilot at CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick on Monday could have been any aging veteran.

But he was Canada's future king about whom his subjects are decidedly ambivalent.

Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, are on a four-day visit to Canada for the Diamond Jubilee of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. Charles will be using the tour to recognize the work of Canadians in service to their communities and abroad, highlighting the theme of the jubilee, according to the Prince of Wales website.

Royal couple's itinerary for Canadian tour

Charles has been heir to the throne longer than any other in British history.

A recent Angus Reid poll suggests many in Britain and the Commonwealth would rather he step aside in favour of his more glamourous, charismatic son William and his wife Catherine. Only 17 per cent of Canadians polled want him to take the crown.

William and Catherine

Torrance Coste is seen sitting on the stump of what is said to have been a 800-year-old red cedar.An environmentalist is blaming budget cuts for allowing wood poachers to haul an 800-year-old red cedar tree out of a Vancouver Island provincial park.

Torrance Coste, a campaigner for the group Wilderness Committee, said the theft is an example of what can happen when there's no one to watch over the parks system.

"We have been concerned about the cutting of park budgets for a number of years. Until about 18 months ago, people would have been watching," Coste told Postmedia News.

Tree poachers first targeted one of the largest red cedars in Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island last year.

They cut almost all the way through its trunk, which measured 2.75 in diameter, but then abandoned the effort. B.C. Parks workers felled the tree for safety reasons and left it to decompose naturally.

However, the poachers returned recently to finish their work.

"The trunk has been hauled out, cut up and taken away, presumably to be further processed and sold,"

Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki speaks during a gathering of Islamist officials near Mogadishu in 2011.An American Islamic jihadist fighting in Somalia has published an online autobiography that includes fond memories of Canada.

Alabama-born Omar Hammami lived in Toronto for a year before travelling to Somalia to join Al Shabab, an al Qaeda-linked group fighting for control of the dystopian African country.

The memoir ostensibly written by Hammami, who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Mansour Al Amriki (the American), is entitled The Story of an American Jihādī, Part 1.

In it, according to the Toronto Star, Hammami says he has no regrets about his life but misses his family and Western pleasures such as hot wings, Chinese food and Tim Hortons coffee.

"There are Tim Horten's (sic) fast-food joints all over the place and people speak from their nose," Hammami wrote, recalling his first impressions after crossing the U.S.-Canada border.

"We used to have a blast asking the Canadians we met: "How 'bout that hockey eh? Wanna have a coffee at Tim Horten's or should I get ya a Fresca?'

"Everything

It's called NCRMD, shorthand for the Criminal Code provision that someone accused of wrongdoing can be held not criminally responsible on account of a mental disorder.

That law often becomes a fracture point when victims of crime believe it closes the door on justice, no more so when the crime is as horrific as Vince Li killing and decapitating a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus four years ago.

Li, who suffers from schizophrenia, this week was granted supervised trips outside the Manitoba mental institution where he was sent after the court found him not criminally responsible for the horrific murder, The Canadian Press reported.

The decision by the Manitoba Criminal Review Board angered Carol de Delley, whose 22-year-old son Tim McLean was killed by Li. She believes he's still a danger.

"It's possible," she told CTV News on Thursday. "He could go off his meds. We know what happened last time he did. And at the end of the day, who then would be held responsible? Nobody."

If it were

Toys subject to recall need to be vetted before sale.So you're planning a garage or yard sale to get a little cash for those things you're ditching after a spring cleaning?

If the display table includes, say, a old set of lawn darts or a child car seat, maybe some yo-yo balls, you're going to have federal health and safety bureaucrats looking over your shoulder.

The year-old Canada Consumer Product Safety Act now covers not just new goods sold by retailers but that ancient baby walker that was gathering dust in your basement.

"There is no distinction under the CCPSA and its regulations between new and used products," Health Canada said a news release this week warning people to be cautious when buying things at garage sales or second-hand stores.

"Any person who sells, distributes, or gives away consumer products that do not comply with the Act or its current regulations is breaking the law in Canada."

Health Canada spokesman Kelvin Au said both the buyer and seller have responsibilities to ensure products comply with safety standards.

Canada prides itself on welcoming newcomers, but one Asian immigrant is getting a chilly reception.

A predatory northern snakehead fish, which eats almost anything and can even jump out of the water to attack small animals, has reportedly been discovered swimming in a small pond in a suburban Vancouver park. The spread of snakeheads has the potential to disrupt aquatic systems almost everywhere in Canada.

Snakeheads have been a growing problem in some U.S. states after being released into rivers and lakes by people who bought them live in food markets, according to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Officials in Burnaby are investigating the reported sighting in Central Park, the Vancouver Sun reported.

A park visitor videotaped what he said looked like a snakehead lolling in the pond, which is home to carp, koi, and turtles, on Mother's Day.

"We haven't actually witnessed it ourselves," Don Hunter, assistant director of Burnaby parks, told the Sun.

According to the DFO,

If you live on the Prairies, Ontario or Atlantic Canada, you'll be spending a lot of time in shorts and tank tops this summer and you'd be advised to stock up on sun screen.

If you're in British Columbia, you'll have a pleasant summer, too, but maybe keep a light sweater handy, if the AccuWeather.com summer forecast is anything to go by.

Meterologist Brett Anderson, who writes the private forecasting site's Canadian weather blog says that "Based on various observations and computer modelling, indications are strongest for a very warm to hot summer across the southern Prairies."

Because of below-normal water temperatures off the west coast, B.C. temperatures should be near or slightly cooler than normal, though rainfall is likely to be normal. But B.C. could be the only place missing out on a really hot summer, Anderson indicated.

"Model guidance and analogs clearly favor more widespread above-normal temperatures compared to below-normal temperatures over Canada as a whole," he wrote.