blind activist Donna Jodhan who spent years battling the federal government in court over website accessibility for the visually impaired believes her long-fought legal victory should be the first step of a national crusade.

A blind activist who spent years battling the federal government in court over website accessibility for the visually impaired believes her long-fought legal victory should be the first step of a national crusade.
Donna Jodhan said a court ruling compelling the federal government to ensure its web-based material is accessible to blind users relying on screen-reading technology is an important victory, but argues other public and private sector organizations should heed the lessons raised by her case.
Jodhan announced on Wednesday that the drawn-out battle that pitted her against the office of the Attorney General of Canada has come to a close after more than three years of legal wrangling.
Both parties have agreed not to challenge a Federal Court of Appeal decision which upheld a ruling from November 2010.
In that ruling, justice Michael Kelen said that the content of federal government websites needed to be fully accessible to visually impaired users. The ruling also compelled the government to stay abreast of changing accessibility standards and ensure its web content was updated to keep pace with modern assistive technology.
Jodhan, a special-needs business consultant from Toronto, acknowledged the ruling was a landmark victory for the blind community, but said she hoped it was the first of many efforts to make the web universally accessible.
"We are reasonably satisfied with how things stand, but more progress is needed," Jodhan said in a telephone interview. "You know that technology is going to keep moving forward, you know that the Internet is going to keep growing, and you also know that as a blind person that it is not enough to say, 'ok, positive progress has been made.' This has to continue."
Jodhan said she first became aware of accessibility shortcomings nearly a decade ago when she tried to apply for a job through the federal government website.
The design of the application form effectively made it illegible to her screen reader, she said. Fields were either mislabelled or not identified at all, pull-down menus kept her from viewing all the options, and information documents were posted to the site in a format that couldn't be read by her access technology.
Complaints to the government hotline went unheeded, Jodhan said, adding most customer service representatives had no idea how to respond to her concerns.
The issue re-emerged in 2006 when Jodhan said she was unable to fill in the online census questionnaire without help from a sighted friend.
It was then that she decided to take action by mounting a challenge accusing the government of violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
"I personally felt the government just had no concept of why it was important for me to have my information in a readable format," she said. "It's independence and confidentiality that you're taking away from me."
Jodhan secured funding through the now-cancelled Court Challenges program, which provided financial backing for court cases that advanced language and equality rights.
The government argued that Jodhan's rights were not being violated, since all information available online could also be obtained through alternate channels such as the phone or local offices.
Those arguments were rejected in Kelen's 2009 ruling, prompting the government to send the case to the Federal Court of Appeal.
A three-judge panel unanimously upheld Kelen's decision last May, saying it agreed with Jodhan's argument that "forcing her to rely on sighted assistance is demeaning and propagates the point of view that (people with vision disabilities) are less capable and less worthy.''
The government opted not to appeal the higher court decision, but Jodhan said she still found herself with a dilemma.
The 2009 ruling had given Ottawa 15 months in which to make its websites comply with accessibility standards, but Jodhan said she had no way to ensure those updates had been made.
She commissioned the Canadian National Institute for the Blind to conduct an independent audit of federal sites before deciding whether to bring further legal action.
The CNIB identified just 16 accessibility issues across 946 web pages, giving the government an error rate of 1.6 per cent and suggesting its Internet presence was very much in line with international web accessibility standards.
Those results were enough for Jodhan.
"We decided it would be in the best interests of the blind community to move forward and allow this government to continue its positive progress," she said.
A spokeswoman for Justice Canada confirmed Wednesday that the federal government would not be appealing the court decision.
"The government of Canada has opted not to seek leave to appeal in this matter. This decision has been communicated to Ms Jodhan’s counsel," said Carole Saindon.
Human rights lawyer David Baker, who shepherded Jodhan's case through the courts, said the positive outcome sets an important precedent for Canada's public and private sector alike.
Federally regulated organizations such as banks, as well as private companies and lower orders of government, would be well-advised to keep accessibility on their radar as they develop their web presences, he said.
"It should be something that people are paying attention to."


Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Advocate+says+government+improved+websites+accessibility+blind/7195254/story.html#ixzz26N0Nxabx

Over 100 years of Supreme Court of Canada judgments now available on CanLII

Over 100 years of Supreme Court of Canada judgments now available on CanLII

The Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) is very pleased to announce that through a joint initiative of the Supreme Court of Canada and Lexum Inc., Canadians and legal researchers across the globe can now access on CanLII a nearly complete collection of over 9,000 decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada dating back to 1907. As with all Canadian court and tribunal decisions available on CanLII (over 1M and growing at a rate of over 2,000 per week), these decisions are fully integrated and cross-linked to any subsequent case on CanLII in which they are referenced.

CanLII's Supreme Court of Canada collection previously encompassed approximately 7,400 decisions, including complete coverage between 1948 and the present as well as partial coverage in all prior years dating back to 1876. The addition of a further 1,600 cases ensures CanLII users will have access to all judgments published in the Supreme Court Reports since 1907.  Researchers interested in a more comprehensive collection of 1876-1907 cases are encouraged to visit the Supreme Court of Canada website where they will find all British Columbia and Ontario-originated matters as well as many others that were decided by the Court during that time period.

The Supreme Court of Canada, Lexum and the University of Montreal are Canada's pioneers in making law freely available on the internet having collaborated since 1993 to provide free, web-based access to Supreme Court of Canada judgments. Their efforts, along with a 1997 federally-promulgated statutory instrument authorizing royalty and permission-free reproductions of federal law and the judgments of federally constituted courts and tribunals, laid much of the groundwork that made CanLII possible. Indeed, Lexum itself has also served continuously as CanLII's publisher and technology supplier since CanLII was launched by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada as a "project" in August of 2000.

CanLII is extremely grateful to the Court and to Lexum for their efforts over the past two decades in building and making their Supreme Court decisions database a treasured public asset as well as for the present contribution facilitating the integration of these additional 1,600 decisions into CanLII.

About CanLII:      The Canadian Legal Information Institute was officially founded in 2001 by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada. Funded by Canada's lawyers and notaries for the benefit of all, CanLII provides free access to legal information. In 2011, CanLII received nearly 7 million site visits and delivered over 81 million page views to users. According to a 2012 survey of Canadian lawyers and notaries, nearly 90% of lawyers have used CanLII within the past year; with 56% reporting that CanLII is the first place they turn to research Canadian case law. Now with over one million documents across over 200 collections, CanLII is closer than ever to achieving the dreams of its founders to become the best place for lawyers and all Canadians to consult Canadian law.

Quebec has won the latest stage in its legal battle against the federal government to keep long-gun registry data

Quebec has won the latest stage in its legal battle against the federal government to keep long-gun registry data for the province.
Justice Marc-Andre Blanchard of the Quebec Superior Court sided with the province and ordered the federal government to hand over the information.
It’s just one more step in the battle over what to do with the remnants of the now-defunct federal gun registry — a fight that could end up before the Supreme Court of Canada.
Today’s decision comes after the province obtained a series of temporary injunctions safeguarding the Quebec data. That meant long-guns continue to be registered in this province, a process that has ended elsewhere in the country.
The bill to end the federal long-gun registry received royal assent on April 5, fulfilling a longstanding promise by the Harper government to decriminalize non-registration of long guns.
In Quebec, where there is a strong current of support for gun control, the provincial government has sought information from the registry and it plans to start its own provincial long-gun registry with data from that province.
Quebec argues that it has a right to the information because its taxpayers helped build and pay for it.
The Harper government is opposed to relinquishing any data, which it is determined to destroy. It says Quebec can start from scratch if it wants to build its own registry.

UCLA scientists have shown that two common tumor suppressor genes, TSC and PTEN, are vital to regulating the stem cell-like precursor cells that create the blood supply in Drosophila, the common fruit fly.

UCLA scientists have shown that two common tumor suppressor genes, TSC and PTEN, are vital to regulating the stem cell-like precursor cells that create the blood supply in Drosophila, the common fruit fly.
The researchers examined a signaling pathway called TOR that the cells use to gauge nutrition levels and stress, said study senior author Dr. Julian A. Martinez-Agosto, an assistant professor of human genetics and pediatrics and a researcher with UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“We wondered how an organism knows how many blood cells to make and when to make them in the context of injury and repair to tissue. In particular, we wondered how the blood progenitor cells sense that change and know when it’s time to make more blood cells,” said Martinez-Agosto, who also is a researcher with the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA. “We found that the TOR pathway uses these two genes to regulate its function and, when activated, it expands or increases the number of blood progenitor cells in the fly’s blood.”

The study appears Sept. 5, 2012 in the advance online issue of the peer-reviewed journal Development.

Michelle Dragojlovic-Munther, a graduate student in the Martinez-Agosto laboratory and first author of the study, found that cells with increased activity of TOR have a competitive advantage, allowing them to divide and make more of themselves so they can make blood. These progenitors, Dragojlovic-Munther found, also have high levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS)—ions or very small molecules that include free radicals—which are known to damage cells and can predispose humans to aging and heart disease. But in this case, the ROS proved valuable.

The precursors, Martinez-Agosto said, were producing ROS all the time and when TOR was activated, the levels increased dramatically. Too much ROS caused them to divide more than normal. If they treated the flies with antioxidants, which reduce ROS levels, the cells would develop normally.

The finding could be important because the TOR pathway is abnormally activated in many cancers, and it may be possible to target the levels of ROS, which may help regulate the pathway.

“What this study may be telling us is that too much ROS is causing more cells to divide and we may be able to target therapies that reduce ROS to significantly improve the condition,” Martinez-Agosto said, adding that specifically targeted antioxidants might be a potential treatment in certain subsets of blood disorders. “Sometimes that pathway is working more than it should, and we need the right amount of ROS for balance. It’s like Goldilocks, there can’t be too little or too much. We need it just right.”

Going forward, Martinez-Agosto and his team will try to determine where the ROS is coming from and perhaps discover an enzyme that may be a good target for therapeutics. They know that the higher ROS levels in blood progenitors are not coming from mitochondria, the cell’s power source, but have not identified how they are being produced.

“This study highlights mechanistic differences between TSC and PTEN on TOR function and demonstrates the multifaceted roles of a nutrient-sensing pathway in orchestrating proliferation and differentiation of myeloid-specific blood progenitors through regulation of ROS levels and the resulting myeloproliferative disorder when deregulated,” the study states.

The study was funded by a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health (GM007185) and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has more than 240 researchers and clinicians engaged in disease research, prevention, detection, control, treatment and education. One of the nation's largest comprehensive cancer centers, the Jonsson center is dedicated to promoting research and translating basic science into leading-edge clinical studies. In July 2012, the Jonsson Cancer Center was named among the top 10 cancer centers nationwide by U.S. News & World Report, a ranking it has held for 12 of the last 13 years. For more information on the Jonsson Cancer Center, visit our website at http://www.cancer.ucla.edu.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal says it’s time to do away with the Criminal Code’s so-called spanking law.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal says it’s time to do away with the Criminal Code’s so-called spanking law.
A strongly worded editorial in the journal Tuesday calls for the repeal of Section 43 of the Criminal Code, which gives parents and teachers a legal defence when they physically discipline children.
“It is time for Canada to remove this anachronistic excuse for poor parenting from the statute book,” editor-in-chief John Fletcher wrote in a signed editorial.
The editorial will likely reignite debate on a controversial topic that has inflamed opinion for decades.
The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the Criminal Code provision by a 6-3 margin in a landmark 2004 ruling.
The high court ruled that the provision did not infringe a child’s right to security of the person under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
Several private members’ bills to ban corporal punishment have failed in the House of Commons and Senate, most recently in 2008.
In the editorial, Fletcher argues that parents need to be educated on how to discipline their children.
He said the Criminal Code needs to be amended because it tells parents that physical punishment is an acceptable way to discipline children.
“Although it is not necessary to make spanking a crime to encourage alternative approaches to parenting, Section 43 of the Criminal Code of Canada sends the wrong message, stating, ‘. . . a parent is justified in using force by way of correction . . . if the force does not exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances’.”
The editorial said that police already have discretion to decide when an assault is trivial, but argued that “any bias” should be aimed at vulnerable children.
“To have a specific code excusing parents is to suggest that assault by a parent is a normal and accepted part of bringing up children. It is not. While Section 43 stands, it is a constant excuse for parents to cling to an ineffective method of child discipline when better approaches are available.”
A Library of Parliament analysis of the issue concluded that there was no national consensus on this issue.
It noted that the Supreme Court and the United Nations committee on the rights of the child have divergent views on Section 43.
The UN panel called for the removal of the section.
In 1984, the Law Reform Commission of Canada recommended the repeal of Section 43 as a defence for teachers, but said it should remain for parents, “primarily out of concern that the criminal law would otherwise unduly encroach on family life for every trivial slap or spanking,” the analysis said.
The library also found that public opinion on the topic has also been divided.
It said that a 2003 poll found 69 per cent of Canadians favoured repealing Section 43 for teachers. But only 51 per cent said it should be removed for parents.

The Vancouver Police Department has tracked down three people in the U.S. suspected of taking part in the June 2011 Stanley Cup riot.

The Vancouver Police Department has tracked down three people in the U.S. suspected of taking part in the June 2011 Stanley Cup riot.
The suspects are in Washington, Alaska and one is believed to be in Illinois. A Canada-wide warrant for participation in a riot and other charges has been issued for their arrests, said Vancouver Police Constable Brian Montague.
“All three are aware that there is warrant out for them right now,” said Montague, who added the suspects were told of the warrant by their local police and know they will be arrested if they try to enter Canada.
Two of the suspects are Americans, but one is a Canadian citizen from Vancouver believed to be studying in the U.S.
An application to U.S. authorities for extradition is being considered, but has not officially been filed, said Montague.
“That’s something that crown counsel has to make the decision on, they have certain criteria regarding extradition,” he said.
A handful of people have been sentenced for their role in the riot that erupted after the Vancouver Canucks lost game seven of the Stanley Cup final to the Boston Bruins on June 15, 2011.
The Crown has laid more than 300 charges against 100 people since the riot.
But, authorities predict they will have laid more than 700 charges against upwards of 225 people by the time they are finished with the case.


Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Vancouver+police+locate+three+suspected+Stanley+rioters/7179792/story.html#ixzz25XE3ATDb

$1 million to support the UCLA Department of Neurosurgery's brain cancer research.

Film executive Ted Gagliano (Beverly Hills, Calif.) has committed $1 million to support the UCLA Department of Neurosurgery's brain cancer research. As president of post-production at 20th Century Fox Studios, he has helped guide more than 500 films to the big screen during his 30-year career, including box-office blockbusters like "Avatar" and "Titanic."

"We are deeply grateful to Mr. Gagliano for his compassion and farsighted vision," said Dr. Neil Martin, chairman of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "His generous gift will enable the UCLA Department of Neurosurgery to pioneer new approaches to fighting aggressive brain cancer and enable more patients to lead longer lives."

In an unexpected twist of fate, Gagliano was invited by a colleague to attend UCLA Neurosurgery's 2011 Visionary Ball the same night that one of his closest friends was undergoing surgery to remove a glioblastoma, a fast-growing, lethal brain tumor. During the dinner gala, a patient at each table stood up and shared how a UCLA neurosurgeon had saved his or her life.

"The survivors' personal stories of hope and courage really inspired me," Gagliano recalled. "I was moved by the unfairness of brain disease, and it hit me how lucky I am to be healthy. I learned about the great work that UCLA does and wanted to do more to help."

A tour of researcher Dr. Linda Liau's laboratory helped seal Gagliano's commitment. Her team has developed a novel vaccine that trains a patient's immune system to recognize and destroy brain cancer cells, adding years to the patient's life.

"Seeing my name on a building isn't my thing," Gagliano said. "What excites me is the chance to offer cancer patients a promising treatment that gives them hope and makes their lives better. That's why I was fascinated by Dr. Liau's vaccine work. She isn't just surgically removing brain tumors; she's looking for new ways to stop them in their tracks for good. I wanted to support research that she wouldn't be able to do otherwise."

The funds from Gagliano's pledge will allow Liau to test a new approach that boosts the vaccine's impact by strengthening the immune system.

"Mr. Gagliano's generous support will enable my team to take a significant step forward in improving personalized therapies to fight glioblastoma," said Liau, vice chair of neurosurgery and director of the UCLA Brain Tumor Program. "We are exploring new research advances and launching clinical trials that we hope will work better in keeping patients cancer-free longer."

Pledging $1 million to support research was just Gagliano's first step toward making a difference in brain cancer patients' lives. Earlier this year, he joined the UCLA Department of Neurosurgery's board of advisers and hosted the first annual Golden Portal Awards. Benefiting UCLA's Brain Tumor Program, the event pays tribute to excellence in film and science.

In recognition of Gagliano's personal contributions, the UCLA Department of Neurosurgery will present him with its prestigious Luminary Award at its 2012 Visionary Ball at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on Oct. 25.

The UCLA Department of Neurosurgery is committed to providing the most comprehensive patient care through innovative clinical programs in minimally invasive brain and spinal surgery; neuroendoscopy; neuro-oncology for adult and pediatric brain tumors; cerebrovascular surgery; stereotactic radiosurgery for brain and spinal disorders; surgery for movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease; and epilepsy surgery. For 21 consecutive years, the department has been ranked among the top neurosurgery programs in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, including No. 1 in Los Angeles and No. 2 on the West Coast.