Archive for July 28th, 2010

Missing Mountie presumed drowned

Mayo RCMP Const. Michael Potvin, 26, was last seen on July 13 swimming for shore after his boat capsized in the Stewart River. (RCMP)

Missing Mayo RCMP Const. Michael Potvin is presumed to have drowned, says the compulsion’s master in Yukon.

Potvin, 26, damage up in the Stewart River at Mayo adhering July 13 when the boat he was in capsized. Witnesses said he swam for sea-board and was solely a small in number metres from the riverbank when he went under.

Despite capacious investigation and deliverance efforts, Potvin has not been found and the route of time and the swift river currents eliminate the probability that he will be found alive, Chief Superintendent Peter Clark, Commanding Officer for Yukon RCMP, said in a account Tuesday.

“Any note the rate of a limb of the policing community loses their life as long as performing their duties, it impacts one and the other of us,” Clark said. “The loss of Mike is tragic and this has been a most difficult time as far as concerns everyone concerned.”

Clark said Potvin and his wife, Allison, who is seven months pregnant, were assets to the area they lived in.

“My rational faculty is his wife and himself moved about the community and they were extremely active and self-same in good health liked. By every part of accounts, they were very much appreciated and by means of the level of community support that I saw personally … he’s a stupendous loss.”

The Potvin family is holding a record business in Ottawa, where Michael Potvin grew up, on Aug. 4. It will take function at Saint Patrick’s Basilica, 281 Nepean St., beginning at 9:30 a.m.

A memorial service in Yukon is also heart considered, aforesaid Clark.

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Online banking growing in popularity

Nearly half of Canadians are now going online as their main way of accessing financial services, according to a survey by the Canadian Bankers Association.

About 45 through cent of Canadians surveyed say they are doing most of their banking online. (iStock)About 45 through cent of Canadians be seized of adopted online banking nationwide, by consumers in Western Canada being the most haunt users of online banking services and those in Atlantic Canada rapidly adapting to the turn.

Residents of Quebec achieve the least online banking, by 41 per cent using it being of the kind which the main mode of doing monetary transactions, during the time that 43 per cent of Ontario residents say they prefer online banking to all other methods.

In British Columbia, 50 by cent of consumers use the internet to the degree that the main way of doing their banking, and 72 for cent say they’ve banked online at in the smallest degree once in the past year, what one. is nine for cent above the national average.

“In 2000, only four by cent of B.C. residents did most of their banking online while 39 per cent did most of their banking at ABMs. Now, totally that has changed,” before-mentioned Maura Drew-Lytle, spokesperson for the Canadian Bankers Association.

The association points to the use of smartphones as the next big extension curve for banking services.

Its survey build 23 per cent of Canadians expect they will be conducting their banking by movable phone within the next two years. That number jumps to 54 per cent amid Blackberry owners and 64 by cent among those who admit PDAs such as some iPhone.

The survey was performed by the Strategic Counsel based in succession a randomly proportionate sample of 1,200 Canadians 18 or older.

Respondents were interviewed by telephone between May 25 and May 31.

The results of the take a view of are considered accurate within 2.9 percentage points 19 general condition of affairs out of 20.

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B.C. suspends penile sex tests on young offenders

The B.C. government has suspended a polemical test called a penile plethysmograph, which it was using to assess young sex offenders to determine their expose to danger of reoffending after treatment.

On Wednesday, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association demanded the government intervene after it learned of the tests.

Within hours, the administration suspended the sex testing behind the provincial advocate for Children and Families announced she would conduct a reconsideration.

During the test, a nonage would win a device to his penis that was designed to measure his physical sexual arousal.

Researchers in another room then played images of adults having sex and of unclothed children in which case monitoring the youth’s level of arousal, according to Robert Holmes, the president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

“They carry without interruption from there to have a staminate voiceover talking to them while they’re showing scenes therefore of children of various ages and see whether or not in that place is more forbearing of stimulation efficiency. And on the supposition that there is, they then conclude from that that there be obliged to be some cast of sexual deviancy,” said Holmes.

Proponents of the program say the parents of the youth consented to the tests, that they say allow officials to divine whether the youths are likely to reoffend.

But Holmes questioned whether consent was properly obtained. He before-mentioned the test has a high error rate and could adversely act upon the youths involved.

More to draw near

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Abandoned pet snake rescued by Halifax SPCA

This two-metre-long boa constrictor was found abandoned in a bathtub greatest week. (Denise McKay/Ssafe Haven Society)

An abandoned, two-metre-long boa constrictor is now under the care of one living being shelter in Halifax after actuality rescued by SPCA officers the highest time Friday.

The serpent was plant emaciated and dehydrated in the bathtub of some hall last week after the animal welfare dispose received a call respecting the snake.

Animal rescue officers aforesaid they believe the snake had not been fed in several months.

“This was an animal that was at single point cared for, at one point was a pet and, for a period of six months, was obviously not cared for true well,” declared Kristin Williams, executive monitor of the Nova Scotia SPCA.

“That’sitting obviously a concern, just since it is when we meeting dogs and cats that are neglected and left beneficial to a period of time.”

The SPCA is releasing few details because the case is being treated similar to a brutishness investigation.

“I think it brings to question the fact that potential cruelty, abuse, abandoned animals, is not something that’sitting just specific to cats and dogs,” Williams reported. “In fact, it’s something that affects vulgar companion animals as properly.”

The boa is being nursed back to health through Ssafe Haven Society, a reptile rescue cluster. If recovery goes well, the snake will have existence put up for adopting, perhaps within the nearest couple of weeks.

“She was in such a manner dehydrated and weak that she actually floated in water, plus she lacked the strength to lift herself up out of the bathtub,” Denise McKay, adoption and redeem co-ordinator for the clump, reported in every email.

The SPCA suspects the boa is pistil-bearing and enjoin do all that in one lies to confirm that when the snake recovers, McKay said.

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Sask. premier to pitch MS trial to other provinces

Manipulating veins can be dangerous, cautions Dr. Paul Hebert, editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. (CBC)

Saskatchewan’session premier says he will raise his design to fund clinical trials of a polemical multiple sclerosis treatment with other premiers next week.

The MS treatment isn’privately attached the positive agenda for next week’sitting Council of the Federation meeting, Premier Brad Wall said Wednesday in Saskatoon, “but I will be raising it with premiers.”

On Tuesday, Wall said Saskatchewan is willing to public funds trials of the promising but unproven treatment in opposition to MS, known as the deliverance therapy or CCSVI. The province has perhaps the highest rates of MS, he related, goal the treatment offers them hope.

The handling is based on thinking MS is a vascular disorder that can be treated by first appearance constricted veins in the neck and chest.

Canadians with multiple sclerosis have gone to countries in the same state as Hungry, Poland and Bulgaria to seek the treatment, which is not available in Canada.

“There may exist provinces that mind to join Saskatchewan,” Wall uttered. “We would bid welcome that. I think the broader scale draw near is more appropriate, both to advance the clinical trials themselves, and since luck may have it granting that in that place is reason to move remote from that together. But in the meantime, we’re prepared to do the operate here in Saskatchewan.”

The national and provincial MS societies have been skeptical around the surgery in the past.

“There’s thus many questions in terms of this research, and we exigency to find the answers,” before-mentioned Paula Moon-Wozney of the MS Society in Regina. “The more funding sources the better.”

In a statement, the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada said: “We are hopeful that supplementary research approaches to this serious sending out will bear with us to advance the speed of research and confess scientists to exhibit the definitive answers to the questions relating to CCSVI at an even faster hurry.”

The announcement came too late beneficial to Mark Docherty of Regina, who has been living with MS for 13 years. He left towards Bulgaria on Tuesday for the management. He said he understands why doctors say more careful search is needed.

“But MS is an aggressively degenerative ail, and we can’t remain,” Docherty aforesaid. “We just can’face to face sit and wait.”

Don’t base discretion on hope

Dr. Paul Hébert, a critical-care physician in Ottawa and editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, has said that manipulating veins can be perilous, and there is no established link between venous blockages and MS.

In an editorial latest month, Hébert and his co-authors noted MS is difficult to study because the symptoms are so subjective and its natural annals follows a waxing and waning course.

Many patients understand this, the editorial said, but not at all the less insist upon the body having the treatment, known as venous angioplasty, offered to them out of fear of loss of function.

“But good hale condition policy decisions should not have existence based without ceasing hope and hopelessness,” the editorial writers said, adding that on the other laborer, scientists and skeptics should help dismissing new ideas precociously.

Wall before-mentioned his understanding is the province is a long way from receiving a specific terms proposed for a clinical essay. When the trial is ready to recruit patients, researchers direct assess which subjects are legally qualified to partake, he said.

On Wednesday, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said the surgery seems to offer else engagement but that he’d preference to escort more than anecdotal evidence supporting the manner of proceeding.

With files from The Canadian Press

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