GLADNET: Promise and Legacy

[Excerpt] The Global Applied Disability Research and Information Network on Employment and Training (GLADNET) was launched by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 1995, in cooperation with over 50 social policy research centres, governmental and non- governmental organizations involved in disability-related employment programmes from over thirty countries around the world. Major organizations of persons with disabilities were also represented – the World Blind Union, the World Federation of the Deaf, Inclusion International (formerly the International League of Societies for Persons with Mental Handicap (ILSMH)) and Disabled Peoples International (DPI). GLADNET’s lifespan was little more than a generation (1995 – 2018). What’s of interest is that it survived beyond its first few years of existence. It could easily have died early on, given a significant change in nature of support from its initiating body. That it didn’t speaks to the aspirational nature and relevance of the vision prompting its formation. It’s in pursuit of that vision where GLADNET left its mark. This document focuses on its legacy, beginning with a brief review of context within which it was initiated

The Cost of Justice: Weighing the Costs of Fair and Effective Resolution to Legal Problems

There is a growing belief that our civil and family justice system2 is in crisis. Evidence is mounting that the public cannot afford to resolve their legal problems through the formal processes of our courts, and it is unclear whether they are accessing other civil justice system services to reach resolution or whether their legal problems remain unresolved. This is a vital concern not only for the individuals who are unable to pursue their claims, but also for the health, economic, and social well-being of all Canadians. There is increasing evidence that unresolved disputes have a significant negative impact on individuals, their families, businesses and society as a whole

Dispute Resolution, Access to Civil Justice and Legal Education

This article examines current dispute resolution teaching and research programs in the context of improving access to justice through recent civil justice reform initiatives. Animated by extensive domestic and international literature, online and survey-based research, the article explores the landscape of alternative dispute resolution education (primarily at law schools), comments on the need for continued thinking and reform and acts as a leading resource to assist in the ongoing, collaborative development of dispute resolution initiatives in legal education in Canada and abroad

Dispute Resolution, Access to Civil Justice and Legal Education

This article examines current dispute resolution teaching and research programs in the context of improving access to justice through recent civil justice reform initiatives. Animated by extensive domestic and international literature, online and survey-based research, the article explores the landscape of alternative dispute resolution education (primarily at law schools), comments on the need for continued thinking and reform and acts as a leading resource to assist in the ongoing, collaborative development of dispute resolution initiatives in legal education in Canada and abroad

Cancer and work in Canada with particular reference to occupational risk factors in breast cancer patients in one community and related selected research methods used to investigate those factors

Cancer represents a major cause of human morbidity and mortality. There is no scientific consensus regarding cancer causality or prevention. Occupational exposure potentially remains a major contributor to the incidence of this group of diseases, but the data to assess its impact continues to elude researchers and public health advocates. Among women in industrialised countries, breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer. The known or suspected risk factors, including family history and lifetime oestrogen load, can account for less than 50 percent of the cases. New hypotheses about the role of xenoestrogens and endocrine disrupting compounds are challenging the previous scientific precepts regarding cancer causality. Within this context, the extent to which a community-based occupational history data collection initiative can contribute to advancing our scientific understanding of associations between cancer and work is explored. The possibility that occupational histories data can find associations missed in conventional breast cancer research that ignore occupation is also explored. More specifically, the extent to which data derived from an occupational history questionnaire can provide insight into the potential association between breast cancer risk and farming is examined. Occupational histories of cancer patients contain data that could help to elucidate and inform our understanding of cancer aetiology and prevention. In the community of Windsor, Ontario, Canada a local cancer treatment centre responded to community concerns by cooperating in a collaborative research project to collect the occupational histories of cancer patients. 'Computerised Record of Occupation Made Easy' (CROME) was an innovative method that allowed individual patients to document their lifetime work histories. This data collection process represented the first time a local Canadian cancer treatment center had undertaken such an initiative. Based on the hypothesis generated by CROME, a new research study was launched - Lifetime Occupational History Record (LOHR). Over a two-and-a-half year period, all female patients at the Windsor Regional Cancer Centre with new incident breast cancer were invited to participate in a population-based case-control study along with an equivalent number of randomly selected community controls. A comprehensive lifetime history questionnaire was administered to subjects by interview. Data gathered included known or suspected risk factors along with a complete occupational history of all jobs ever worked. An occupational history of farming alone produced an Odds Ratio (OR) = 2.8 (Cl, 95%, 1.6-4.8). These findings are important for our understanding of cancer causality with implications for resolving the current scientific conflict regarding the role of occupationally caused carcinogenesis. Such collaborative, community-based studies also demonstrate the importance of community participation in the scientific research process

International Mega-Events and Urban Planning in the Context of Toronto

This paper explores mega-events and their relationship to urban planning and public participation. Mega-events, often referred to as hallmark events, are short-term, high profile spectacles that have a massive popular appeal, a large mediated reach, and international significance (Hall, 1992; Roche, 2000). Mega-events include major fairs, festivals, expositions, such as the World Expo and significant sporting events like the Olympic games and the FIFA World Cup. For many cities, mega-events are an alluring urban strategy that “promises” tangible and intangible benefits for cities and nations (Burbank et al., 2001). These short-lived events can have tremendous influence over urban spaces, built environments, and city populations (Greenhalgh, 1988; Roche, 2003). Given their impacts, it should not be a surprise that these events have encountered various forms of resistance (Lenskyj, 2008; Cottrell, 2011; Gotham, 2016). A significant amount of this opposition focuses on the lack of accountability, transparency, and public engagement that is often seen in the various mega-event hosting processes (Kidd, 1992; Flyvbjerg, 2003; Hall, 2006). Those that oppose these events critique the undemocratic nature of decision-making processes used to bid for and plan hallmark events (Kidd, 1992; Gotham, 2011). Through this essay, I will argue why participatory planning strategies must be used for the development of inclusive decision-making processes in mega-event planning within the city of Toronto. I will argue that although public engagement and a commitment to participatory planning has seemingly been devalued in the city’s history of pursuing the hosting of a hallmark event, they are essential components for the successful and equitable bidding and planning of such events. I believe participatory planning can be used for the meaningful consideration of various public interests and the creation of a “hosting concept/vision” that works towards the advancement of varying city priorities across a wide range of local communities. When thinking of how to engage varying communities in mega-event planning processes, it is vital to consider what engagement approaches have been used in previous mega-event hosting attempts, and what future strategies are recommended for the city of Toronto

Transnational Corporate Regulation through Sustainability Reporting: A Case Study of the Canadian Extractive Sector

Despite the benefits transnational corporations (TNCs) offer, they remain largely unregulated entities, enabling environmental, social, and human rights violations to be overlooked. Canadian extractive sector TNCs operating internationally are frequently cited as major perpetrators of such violations. Literature on new governance and self-regulation as well as global corporate social responsibility (CSR) increasingly offers disclosure and reporting as a solution for TNC regulation. This study examines disclosure in international CSR frameworks, and the reflexive law and new governance theories explaining the role of such disclosure and reporting. Mirroring international CSR initiatives, Canadian jurisdictions are increasingly recommending disclosure for its extractive sector TNCs, including through its securities laws. Securities law provides a promising foundation for sustainability reporting because of its existing disclosure framework and its ability to compel disclosure. This potential of Canadian securities law also provides a basis for comparison with the Global Reporting Initiative, the leading sustainability reporting standard

The Academic Grind: A Critique of Creative and Collaborative Discourses Between Digital Games Industries and Post-Secondary Education in Canada

ABSTRACT Digital game development, seeking opportunities to extend its reach and augment its capabilities in a competitive global market, requires the institutions around it to respond and reconfigure to its needs. In Canada, collaborations between digital game industries and educational institutions coalesce around the need to identify and draw students into a tailored educational stream where narrowly defined forms of creativity and knowledge maintain a fluidity amenable to the needs of capital. Provincial and federal government endorsement, supplemented with targeted policy measures, presides over a repurposing of the relationship between post-secondary education, business, and society as a whole, translating monopolies of labour and knowledge into monopolies of power. For educational institutions however, this process of adaptation is necessarily an incomplete one. Using document data, along with interviews of administrators and professionals who negotiate the space between industry and education, the dissertation targets three regions of Canada with idiosyncratic industrial ecosystems, institutional networks, administrative imperatives, and specific demands for skilled game development labour. In Vancouver, Montréal, and Southern Ontario, the disciplining of students as ideal neoliberal subjects magnifies class divisions, unevenly addresses struggles around gendered working conditions in a male dominated industry, and exacerbates ongoing tensions regarding labour in digital media industries. This dissertation contends that the further intensification of the flexibility of educational institutions and their attempt to adapt to the speed of digital capital is a moment of high risk: in negotiating their adequacy and legitimacy in a neoliberal mode of capital, educational programs and their students are exposed to rapidly changing market conditions, competing agendas, and economic crises. The contingencies and contradictions present within administrative subjectivities generate spaces to establish the terms of a recomposition of post-secondary education that requires new arrangements of affinity within educational networks