Blog Posts by Steve Mertl

A woman identified only as N.S. returned to court Monday to renew her request to be allowed to give evidence while wearing a niqab during the trial of two relatives accused of sexually assaulting her when she was a child.A groundbreaking case that led the Supreme Court of Canada to clarify the rules on whether Muslim women can testify while fully veiled is back in a Toronto courtroom.

A woman identified only as N.S. returned to court Monday to renew her request to be allowed to give evidence while wearing a niqab during the trial of two relatives accused of sexually assaulting her when she was a child.

“I observe the school of thought where the veil is obligatory,” the woman, wearing a black niqab that revealed only her eyes, told the judge, according to the Toronto Star.

Questioned by her lawyer, David Butt, N.S. said she wears the niqab to ensure she does not create a "sexual environment," the Star said.

The case was back in court some six years after N.S. refused to remove her veil during the preliminary hearing into the sexual-assault allegations.

[ Related: Niqabs for some who testify, but not for all, Supreme Court declares ]

The Supreme Court ruling, with one judge dissenting and two others

Read More »from Muslim woman makes new attempt to testify in sex assault case while veiled

There are few doors still closed to women in sports.

They regularly kick butt in the MMA cage, though according to Sports Illustrated there are still some who think they don't belong there.

Women now regularly compete against men in auto racing (hello, Danica Patrick), and in 2011 they won a long battle to compete in Olympic ski-jumping with the announcement that women's events will be included in the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.

But one bastion that's been hard to crack has been the Calgary Stampede's bronc-riding event. Kaila Mussell hopes to change all that.

The annual Stampede is the holy of holies in professional rodeo. What the Masters is to golf, the Stampede is to cowboy sports.

[ Related: Women ski jumpers not just courageous on the jump ]

According to CBC News, there were women saddle-bronc riders in the Stampede's early years but the formation of the Rodeo Association of America in 1929 led to the gradual exclusion of women from almost everything except barrel racing. The force

Read More »from B.C. cowgirl vies to smash gender barrier at this summer’s Calgary Stampede

Journalists and lawyers can still use electronic devices to take notes. Lawyers' tables these days are usually crowded with open laptops showing the court transcript scrolling past in real time or their own case notes.The Quebec justice system's new policy that cuts off its courtrooms from the Internet reminded me of my first boss in journalism.

Although he ran the sports department at a now-defunct Ottawa paper, he'd cut his teeth as news reporter in an era when newspapers were still the main source of information and the competition was cutthroat.

He told me once about covering a high-profile, heavily covered court case in a small town near Ottawa. When the verdict came in he made sure he was the first out the door to the only pay telephone in town. He dictated a brief bulletin to his newsroom and hung up. Then he cut the phone line.

I spent much of my career as a wire-service reporter in the pre-cell phone era, which meant ducking out of court to to the nearest pay phone to file updates and hoping I wasn't missing anything crucial.

Cell phones were a godsend, since now I only had to step out the door. Texting, and eventually phone email, allowed me to tip my editor quickly on verdicts or other

Read More »from Quebec courtrooms to become Facebook, Twitter-free zones with new ban

Canada has a poor track record of immortalizing its heroes on film.

There's Bethune: The Making of a Hero, the 1977 movie about the Montreal doctor who became an icon of China's Communist revolution. But after that, I'm hard pressed to come up with one.

And when it comes to Hollywood films about Canadians, forget about it. Lots of Canadians work in La-La Land, but apparently there's no money there in telling our stories. That's what makes Los Angeles-based producer Kelly Slattery's plans for a big-screen bio of Terry Fox so intriguing.

The Metro Toronto native is planning to give Fox the full Hollywood treatment, with hopes of a big director and name star, according to the Vancouver Sun. Her unique proposal would also see the profits from the film go towards fulfilling Fox's mission.

Fox, of course, was the B.C. teenager who lost a leg to cancer and in 1980 began a cross-country run to raise money for cancer research. He headed west from St. John's in near anonymity, running nearly

Read More »from Can Kickstarter campaign turn Terry Fox’s story into a Hollywood film?

A couple of Canadian zoos have taken some stick over their treatment of elephants in their collection, which has resulted in plans to send three to a California elephant sanctuary.

But now animal lovers are lobbying for a Winnipeg zoo to give refuge to a polar bear reportedly suffering in an Argentine zoo.

Arturo is languishing in the Mendoza Zoological Park and apparently not doing so well, according to Maria Fernanda Arensten.

Hot weather and poor living conditions are taking their toll on the 29-year-old bear, she told CBC News.

A video purportedly depicting Arturo was posted on YouTube. It shows a bear moving jerkily near the top of its arid-looking compound, with a shallow pool half-filled with water in the foreground.

"He looks so sad. He really looks in pain," said Arentsen, who hails from Argentina but now lives in Canada. "The weather, the conditions, you can imagine it — a polar bear in a desert, with a swimming pool 50 centimetres deep."

[ Related: Another penguin dies at

Read More »from Lobbying underway for Canada to save Arturo the polar bear from Argentina’s stifling heat

The law books in prison libraries get a lot of use among inmates working on pending cases but they get a workout as well from inmates filing lawsuits.

There are no readily available figures on the number of suits filed by Canadian prisoners. Last year a group of inmates filed a $1.25-million class action after being barred from wearing T-shirts with an upside down maple leaf on Prisoners Justice Day, the Toronto Star reported.

But American courts have been inundated with prisoner lawsuits.

In 1995, inmates in U.S. institutions filed almost 40,000 suits in the federal court system, accounting for almost 20 per cent of the entire federal civil docket, according to a 2003 scholarly article by University of Michigan law professor Margo Schlanger.

A vast number of suits were considered frivolous and less than 15 per cent were successful, prompting the U.S. Congress to pass a controversial law that restricted inmates' access to the civil courts.

But that hasn't stopped murderer Larry

Read More »from Convicted Canadian murderer stalks victim’s wife via $100,000 lawsuit

Former Vancouver Olympic boss John FurlongJohn Furlong has scaled the heights of success and fame, overcoming tremendous pressure to engineer the triumphant 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.

He faces a different, darker test of strength now, losing his wife in a car crash while in the midst of a legal offensive against allegations of sexual and physical abuse against students while he was a Catholic youth worker decades ago.

Deborah Sharp Furlong died Thursday in an accident while vacationing in Ireland, Furlong said in a statement issued Friday morning to news media.

"While our extended families are beyond words over this loss, we would like to thank our friends and well-wishers for their heartfelt concern and condolences as our families face this sudden and painful tragedy," the statement said.

"While I understand that there may be interest in more details, please understand that at this extremely difficult time, I request privacy for our families. Thank you."

[ Related: Wife of former Vancouver Olympic CEO John

Read More »from Former Vancouver Olympic boss John Furlong’s strength tested as wife dies in Irish car crash

(Reuters)We want our teachers to be creative, to find new ways to make lessons meaningful and to keep their students' attention.

But David Thomas Hobbs went too far.

How far is too far? How about asking a Grade 7 girl to lie on a desk while the science teacher rubs her legs to demonstrate the action of lava?

Or making three male students lie on one another while he squatted on them to show how pressure affects a layer of rock?

Hobbs agreed to quit teaching and have his teaching certificate cancelled, according to the B.C. Teacher Regulation Branch decision released this week.

Hobbs' career crash began with an incident in February 2009 when he was demonstrating a geology lesson, the agency said.

"He positioned a female student [Student A] on her back, on top of some desks, with her legs bent," its decision said.

"Intending to be humorous, he said words to the effect 'you are the rock and I am the lava, the hot stuff.' He then used Student A to demonstrate how magma lava changes from an igneous

Read More »from ‘I am the lava, the hot stuff:’ science teacher fired for getting too touchy