Blog Posts by Steve Mertl

The material, a poster and brochures, was part of an AIDS awareness campaign.There's no question sexually explicit posters intended to caution adults in gay bars and bath houses about safe sex don't belong on the bulletin board of a junior high school classroom.

But the amount of puffed up indignation and partisan political bashing over the incident at a Toronto school seems over the top.

A teacher at Delta Alternative School in Toronto's Little Italy district has been suspended for posting the materials in classrooms used by Grade 7 and 8 students, the National Post reported.

The material, a poster and brochures, was part of an awareness campaign by the AIDS Committee of Toronto. The poster had an eye-grabbing phrase "If you like to f—" and included tips on how gay and bisexual men can practise safe sex, the Post said. The material included a picture of a man's partly exposed rear and advice on how to "use your head when giving it."

Principal Marc Mullan sent a letter home to parents of the school's 63 students on Tuesday saying he was made aware of the poster

I don't know about you but I'm a little concerned about the drastic decline in the number of Jedi Knights in Canada.

The Canadian Press reports new census data released Wednesday by Statistics Canada shows people identifying themselves as Jedi in the 2011 National Household Survey dwindled to about 9,000 from a peak of more than 20,000.

This may be an under-reported crisis for Canada. After all, with budget cutbacks hitting the military and border guards, who's going to protect us from the Empire and its allies on the Dark Side?

One of Canada's most famous Jedi apprentices, Ghyslain Raza of Trois-Rivieres, Que., whose 2002 video drew more than 27 million views on YouTube, quit the order and went to law school, according to a 2010 article on Mashable.

It's part of a global decline in declared Jedis, Statistics Canada senior analyst Jane Badets told The Canadian Press.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia had more than 70,000 declared Jedi in its 2001 census but the figure shrank

High-priced escorts are travelling to Newfoundland from as far away as Vancouver.Prostitutes routinely travel from place to place on set "tracks" that are well known to police but you might be surprised to hear Newfoundland and Labrador have become popular stops for Canada's call girls.

According to a CBC News investigation, high-priced escorts are travelling to Newfoundland from as far away as Vancouver, working not just in St. John's but also communities such as Deer Lake, Gander, Clarenville and Corner Brook.

It's not hard to guess why Newfoundland and Labrador now is a destination for sex trade workers. The province's economy, long dependent on fishing and other seasonal work, is flush with money from energy exploration and production and even facing labour shortages in some sectors.

A St. John's-area escort who identified herself as Iris, told CBC News the sex industry is flourishing.

"The local girls that have decided to take it up as a profession, the clientele — everything has boomed in the last 16 months," she said. "When I first started, I was in competition

Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth.It's been 25 years since the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Canada's abortion law as unconstitutional in R. v Morgentaler but the issue remains unsettled.

As in the United States, the anti-abortion movement continues to challenge a woman's right to chose to terminate her pregnancy, arguing a fetus has as much right to life as a newborn baby.

The movement has its champions in the federal Conservative caucus, even if Prime Minister Stephen Harper has stressed he doesn't want the politically explosive debate reopened. While a segment of his support base might back the right-to-life position, Harper sees only potential lost votes in the electoral centre.

But he hasn't been able to rein in advocates such as Alberta MP Mark Warawa and Ontario's Stephen Woodworth, who've defied their micro-managing prime minister and tried to bring the issue back into the House of Commons.

[ Related: Anti-abortion MP Stephen Woodworth blocked from speaking at University of Waterloo ]

Their strategy has not

Canada Border Services Agency's 'Most Wanted' website (Screengrab courtesy CBSA)The guardians of Canada's frontiers have been tripped up again in their efforts to engage the public in their vital work.

Documents obtained by Postmedia News show Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is fighting with the federal Information and Privacy Commissioner's office over its Wanted by the CBSA website, as well as legal action by some who've been featured on the site.

The agency has been dealing recently with the fallout from its participation in a National Geographic Channel series called Border Security that documents the work of its agents. Critics have slammed it for allowing cameras to record a raid to capture illegal immigrants at a Vancouver construction site, among other things.

Postmedia News reported the CBSA now has imposed restrictions on what can be recorded, citing "negative public response." Cameras now will be limited to covering enforcement activities tied to people involved in serious criminal activity or who are on the Most Wanted list.

It was created in 2011

Henk Tepper (CBC image)Being a farmer takes patience and the willingness to shrug off setbacks in the hope of a payoff down the road in a rich harvest.

Keep that in mind as you read about Henk Tepper, who's suing the federal government after spending more than a year in a Lebanese prison over charges he calls bogus, The Canadian Press reports.

You might remember Tepper, the New Brunswick potato farmer who found himself under arrest in Lebanon two years ago while on a government-sponsored promotional tour of the Middle East touting seed potatoes.

He was collared on an international arrest warrant on charges he allegedly exported rotten potatoes to Algeria and forged export documents. Tepper has categorically denied any wrongdoing.

Tepper was eventually freed and arrived back home March 31, 2012 after spending 374 days in custody, CBC News reported at the time. His family said he suffered mental and physical problems during his incarceration and his farm went into bankruptcy protection beneath debts of $11

A priest blesses the angel cradle at Edmonton's Grey Nuns Community Hospital.

A move by the Catholic agency that runs two Edmonton hospitals to provide so-called "angel cradles" to drop off unwanted newborn babies anonymously is likely to rile the United Nations.

Covenant Health, which operates the Grey Nuns and Misericordia hospitals, announced the initiative Monday in hopes desperate mothers will use the service instead of abandoning their babies in places where they could die, CBC News reports.

"There's some women who have dissociative mental illness and we can't necessarily reach them, but there are some women [whose] safety is in conflict with that of their baby," Angel's Cradle program founder Dr. Geoffrey Cundiff said at the announcement.

The program is modelled on one Cundiff set up at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver three years ago, the first in Canada. So far only one baby has been left in the private alcove near the downtown hospital's ER, CBC News noted.

[ Related: Edmonton hospitals provide 'angel cradles' for unwanted newborns ]

The drop-off was set up

Clayworth's life has been a nightmare since he and Yan broke up, he told CBC News.The suicides of teenagers Rehtaeh Parsons and Amanda Todd, among others, have demonstrated the devastation that cyber bullying can cause.

The Internet has also become fertile ground for life-ruining cyber stalkers, whose victims might not be driven to kill themselves but whose lives are disrupted and even ruined.

The case of Vancouver teacher Lee David Clayworth gives us some idea of how vulnerable people are to cyber stalking, and how ineffective the legal system seems to be in countering it.

The CBC News Go Public unit details how Clayworth, who was teaching in Malaysia, was hounded relentlessly by his former girlfriend. Not even a contempt-of-court ruling and the threat of a stint in a Malaysian jail stopped Lee Ching Yan from posting bogus accusations of unsavoury and even criminal behaviour about him on the web.

Clayworth's life has been a nightmare since he and Yan broke up, he told CBC News. He said Yan's false claims about him have made it hard to find work.

"I feel not only shut