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Government Digital: The Quest to Regain Public Trust
by Alex BenayGovernments the world over are consistently outpaced by digital change, and are falling behind. Digital government is a better performing government. It is better at providing services people and businesses need. Receiving benefits, accessing health records, registering companies, applying for licences, voting — all of this can be done online or through digital self-service. Digital technology makes government more efficient, reduces hassle, and lowers costs. But what will it take to make governments digital? Good governance will take nothing short of a metamorphosis of the public sector. With contributions from industry, academic, and government experts — including Hillary Hartley, chief digital officer for Ontario, and Salim Ismail, founder of Singularity University 7#8212; Government Digital lays down a blueprint for this radical change.
Grassroots Artisans: Walter Stansell, Dan Sarazin, Henry Taylor
by Barry Lloyd PenhaleWalter Stansell of Straffordville, Dan Sarazin of Golden Lake, and Henry Taylor of Bancroft did what they had to do to preserve some of Canada's rural history. Stansell preserved the age of steam by building working models of machines used during the past century. Master canoe make Dan Sarazin (Chief White Eagle) has given many hours of his time to the preservation of old Native skills. Taylor still builds hand hewn log cabins, splits his own shingles with pioneer tools and carves reminders of early days in the bush. These three extraordinary men have done more than salvage some of Canada's past. Each in his own way actually made history at the Grass Roots level. Through extensive research involving oral history and the uncovering of a wide range of materials, i.e. vintage photographs, diaries, maps and sketchbooks, Barry Lloyd Penhale, journalist and broadcaster, has assembled an outstanding archival collection of Canadiana. In recalling colourful and courageous characters and communities of bygone eras, the publishers hope to partly fill the vacuum so long apparent in the preservation of our distinctive heritage.
The Great Climate Robbery: How the Food System Drives Climate Change and What We Can Do About It
by GRAINThe Great Climate Robbery connects analysis of the food system to larger issues affecting the planet, and link peoples’ struggles over food to climate change. This book will help readers to understand the ways in which corporations control the food system and provide the analysis needed to challenge this control.
Growing Resistance: Canadian Farmers and the Politics of Genetically Modified Wheat
by Emily EatonIn 2004 Candian farmers led an international coalition to a major victory for the anit-GM movement by defeating the introduction of Monsanto's genetically modified wheat. Canadian farmers' strong opposition to GM wheat marked a stark contrast to previous producer acceptance of other genetically modified crops. By 2005, for example, GM canola accounted for 78 percent of all canola grown nationally. So why did farmers stand up for wheat? In Growing Resistance, Emily Eaton reveals the motivating factors behind farmer opposition to GM wheat. She illustrates wheat's cultural, historical, and political significance on the Canadian prairies as well as its role in crop rotation, seed saving practices, and the economic livelihoods of prairie farmers. Through interviews with producers, industry organizations, and biochemical companies, Eaton demonstrates how the inclusion of producer interests was integral to the coalition's success in voicing concerns about environmental implications, international market opposition to GMOs, and the lack of transparency and democracy in Canadian biotech policy and regulation. Growing Resistance is a fascinating study of successful coalition building, of the need to balance local and global concerns in activist movements, and of the powerful forces vying for control of food production.
Humboldt's Mexico: In the Footsteps of the Illustrious German Scientific Traveller
by Myron EchenbergThe incalculable influence of Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) on biology, botany, geology, and meteorology deservedly earned him the reputation as the world’s most illustrious scientist before Charles Darwin. Humboldt’s breath-taking explorations of Mexico and South America from 1799 to 1804 are akin to Europe’s second “discovery” of the New World – this time, a scientific one. His Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain is a foundational document about Mexico and its cultures and is still widely consulted by anthropologists, geographers, and historians. In Humboldt’s Mexico, Myron Echenberg presents a straightforward guide with historical and cultural context to Humboldt’s travels in Mexico. Humboldt packed a lifetime of scientific studies into one daunting year, and soon after published a four-volume account of his findings. His adventures range widely from inspections of colonial silver mines and hikes to the summits of volcanoes to meticulous examination of secret Spanish colonial archives in Mexico City and scientific discussions of archaeological sites of pre-Hispanic Indigenous cultures. Echenberg traces Humboldt’s journey, as described in his publications, his diary, and other writings, across the heartland of Mexico, while also pursuing Humboldt’s life, his science, his experiences, his influence on scholars of his time and after, and the various efforts by others to honour and at times to denigrate his legacy. Part history, part travelogue, and always highly readable and informative, Humboldt’s Mexico is an engaging account of a gifted scientist and visionary that ranges across topics as diverse and broad as natural history was in his era.
Hydro: The Decline and Fall of Ontario's Electric Empire
by Jamie Swift Keith Stewart“Nothing is going to go wrong.” -Mike Harris, 2001 Privatization of power soon became one of the biggest political disasters in Ontario history. Hydro reveals a train wreck that was decades in the making. First there was blind faith in the nuclear option, steeped in ecological arrogance. Then came the promise of marketplace magic. Jamie Swift and Keith Stewart tell the tale of how it unfolded. It’s a dramatic story of the greed, intrigue, and resistance that led to the dismantling of Canada’s largest crown corporation. A crucial part of the story is how Ontario ignored thirty years of green arguments for conservation and renewable energy. Based on interviews with former premiers, Hydro insiders, and grassroots activists, Hydro will intrigue anyone wondering how to keep the lights on without frying the planet.
In a New Light: Histories of Women and Energy
by Abigail Harrison Moore and R.W. SandwellIn the early 1970s, a German study estimated that women expended as many calories cleaning their coal-mining husbands' work clothes as their husbands did working below ground, arguably making the home as much a site of industrialized work as factories and mines. But while energy studies are beginning to acknowledge the importance of social and historical contexts and to produce more inclusive histories of the unprecedented energy transitions that powered industrialization, women have remained notably absent from these accounts.In a New Light explores the vital place of women in the shift to fossil fuels that spurred the Industrial Revolution, illuminating the variety of ways in which gender and energy intersected in women's lives in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe and North America. From their labour in the home, where they managed the adoption of new energy sources, to their work as educators in electrical housecraft and their protests against the effects of industrialization, women took on active roles to influence energy decisions.Together these essays deepen our understanding of the significance of gender in the history of energy, and of energy transitions in the history of women and gender. By foregrounding women's energetic labours and concerns, the authors shed new light on energy use in the past and provide important insights as societies move towards a carbon-neutral future.
The Legacy of John Waldie and Sons: A History of the Victoria Harbour Lumber Company
by Kenneth A. Armson Marjorie McleodAt the time of his death in 1907, John Waldie, founder of the Victoria Harbour Lumber Company, was identified as "the second largest lumber operator in Canada." A young Scottish immigrant who came to Wellington Square (now Burlington, Ontario) in 1842, he rose to prominence as a wealthy merchant and ship owner. In 1885 he entered the lumber business. Active in local and federal politics, and a friend of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, he invested capital in mills, people and forests.Local history and genealogical connections are part of the Waldie story, headquartered at Victoria Harbour in Simcoe County. Documentation of the forest that the company logged, their nature, amount and sizes of logs harvested with the descriptions of the forests as they are now, throws new light and shatters some of the current myths.This little-known story provides insights into days of rampant entrepreneurialism, the world of the lumber barons and the overall impact on our Ontario forests.
Locksmith: A Felix Taylor Adventure
by Nicholas MaesCommended for the 2009 Best Books for Kids & Teens, long-listed for the 2009 CLA Book of the Year for Children Award Twelve-year-old Lewis Castorman is a master locksmith: there is no lock on earth that he is unable to open. He is therefore flattered when world-renowned chemist Ernst K. Grumpel invites him to his office in New York City and offers him a lock-picking assignment. His confidence quickly turns to dismay, however, when he learns this job will take him to Yellow Swamp in northern Alberta, the scene of a disastrous chemical spill a year earlier. He is also horrified to discover that Grumpel is utterly ruthless and, through his chemical inventions, can alter the rules of nature at his will. But the assignment is one that Lewis can’t refuse. How is Grumpel able to create such miraculous transformations? What secrets has he locked away and why has he taken pains to store them in Alberta? Despite the strange discoveries Lewis will make at every turn in his adventures, nothing will prepare him for the final encounter that awaits him in Yellow Swamp.
Look It Up!: What Patients, Doctors, Nurses, and Pharmacists Need to Know about the Internet and Primary Health Care
by Julie Barlow Pierre Pluye Roland GradDoctors Pierre Pluye and Roland Grad, internationally recognized experts in the fields of knowledge translation and health information studies, along with bestselling author and journalist Julie Barlow, take readers behind the scenes to show how online information is affecting self-care and primary health care in medicine, nursing, and pharmacy. Based on fifteen years of in-depth interviews and research, Look It Up! provides essential tips for patients and clinicians to administer and receive the best possible primary health care, while avoiding the perils of unguided self-diagnosis. This book shows how, by dint of an inquiring mind and a smartphone, rapid and accurate acquisition of knowledge keeps primary care clinicians up to date. It also shows how people can determine whether a test is more beneficial than harmful, and how information helps resolve disagreements and improve collaboration with patients and families, and among doctors, pharmacists, and nurses. In the age of easily accessible online information, clinicians have to think differently about how they work. Organized around numerous real clinical stories, Look It Up! is an illuminating and lively guide to improving patient care.
Mary Anning's Curiosity
by Monica KullingThe amazing story of how the world’s greatest fossilist found her first huge find at the age of twelve.Mary was born in 1799 in Lyme Regis, England, to a poor family. She and her older brother were the only two of ten children to survive. Her father, a carpenter and part-time fossil hunter, taught his children to look for fossils.When her father injured himself and was unable to work, Mary quit school and took up fossil hunting full-time to help support her family, a task that became even more important when her father died, leaving the Annings in debt. At the age of twelve, Mary, with her older brother Joe, found what they believed to be the skeleton of a gigantic crocodile, the Great Croc of the legends. Between dodging her rival fossil hunter, the Curiman, and the sheer work of carefully digging out the fossil, Mary took almost a year to excavate what would later be termed the Ichthyosaurus. Mary Anning may have been uneducated, poor and a woman, but her life’s work of fossil hunting led her to make many discoveries that influenced our understanding of prehistoric creatures and the age of the Earth. In 2010, Mary was named among the ten British women who have most influenced the history of science. Charles Darwin even cited Mary’s fossilized creatures as evidence in his book On the Origin of Species. In this triumphant novel about scientific discovery, Monica Kulling brings Mary Anning and her world to life for young readers. Key Text Featuresauthor's notehistorical contextresourcesfactsfurther reading
A Mill Should Be Build Thereon: An Early History of the Todmorden Mills
by Eleanor DarkeIt is difficult for Todmorden Mills Museum visitors to imagine that this site so close to the busy Don Valley Parkway was once home to an important mill. As early as 1793 Governor Simcoe recognized the industrial potential of this portion of the Don River. By 1795 Skinner’s sawmill was under construction, initiating an era of technological development that spread beyond the valley of the Don into what was then Muddy York. Today, Todmorden serves to remind us of Toronto’s industrial heritage and the spirit of the time. This invaluable local history confirms the significance of early mills and later factories along the Don River and recognizes the roles played by Timothy Skinner, Parshall Terry, George Playter, William Helliwell and other settlers and entrepreneurs of Governor John Graves Simcoe’s time and beyond. Eleanor Darke, assisted by Ian Wheal, presents us with an informative account of the people, their lives and their creative influence.
Mona
by Dan SehlbergA suspenseful and highly original technothriller based on breathtaking developments in the field of thought-controlled systems and cyber warfare.Eric Söderqvist, professor of computer science at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, has invented Mind Surf: a thought-controlled system that allows people with disabilities to browse the web.Samir Mustaf is a former MIT professor whose daughter Mona was killed by an Israeli cluster bomb five years earlier. He has just developed the most sophisticated computer virus the world has ever seen, for the purpose of a cyber attack against Israel’s financial system.Eric’s wife Hanna falls into a coma — struck by an aggressive and previously unknown virus — after having tested her husband’s invention. The doctors are at a loss. Although everyone around him thinks he’s gone mad, Eric is convinced that his wife has been infected by a powerful computer virus known as Mona, and that the only way he can save her is by tracking down its creator.
Night Call (The Walking Shadows #1)
by Brenden CarlsonA rogue robot is terrorizing the dark underbelly of 1930s Manhattan. Can detective Elias Roche and his new Automatic partner track it down? The year is 1933. Even in a world with free energy, robot labour, and megacorporations, nothing could stop the collapse of the American Dream. As the world-spanning Great Depression rages on, the remaining New York–based mafias clash with police for control of the broken city. Elias Roche, former police officer turned Mafia enforcer, works to maintain a tenuous peace between the two parties. Accustomed to settling disputes with the business end of a gun, Roche must expand his repertoire after a violent murder is covered up by the FBI. With the Mafia insisting they’re innocent of the crime and the police powerless to help, Roche and his new Automatic partner, Allen, must root out those responsible before the situation sparks a war in the city streets.
No Ordinary Man: George Mercer Dawson 1849-1901
by Lois Winslow-Spragge Bradley LocknerGeorge Mercer Dawson was indeed no ordinary man. Born in 1849, son of the first Principal of McGill University, Dawson defied health circumstances that would have defeated many people and went on to become one of our most exceptional Canadians. As a geologist in the British North American Boundary Commission between Canada and the U.S.A. and as Director of the Geological Survey of Canada in 1895, Dawson examined and explored every aspect of Canada’s unknown territories. This collection of writings, letters, diaries and essays begins with the young George and moves through his developing years to his adult life. "He climbed, walked and rode on horseback over more of Canada than any other member of the Geological Survey of Canada at that time – yet to look at him, one would not think him capable of a day’s hard physical labour …. It was his hand that first traced upon vacant maps the geological formations of the Yukon and much of British Columbia."- Lois Winslow-Spragge". To read about him is like taking a drink of water from a cool, unpolluted spring. His sense of values was so great that he once said he didn’t care much for money or possessions. All he wanted was what he could hold in his canoe."- Anne Byers, Ottawa
Nothing On But the Radio: A Look Back at Radio in Canada and How It Changed the World
by Gil MurrayRadio made its debut in the early twentieth century, and the world was never the same. The mysterious magic box brought people together as no other communication medium had ever done. In Nothing On but the Radio, author Gil Murray tells how the new household toy put voices and music into millions of homes. In the 1920s, families gathered around the crystal set; in the 1930s, radio comedians helped offset the Depression; in the wartime 1940s, radio kept up morale; in the 1950s and 1960s, its music, news, and information spread knowledge and entertainment. This book spotlights a popular revolution that was never quiet.
Out of Orbit: The True Story of How Three Astronauts Found Themselves Hundreds of Miles Above the Earth With No Way Home
by Chris JonesIn February 2003, American astronauts Donald Pettit and Kenneth Bowersox and Russian flight engineer Nikolai Budarin were on a routine fourteen-week mission maintaining the International Space Station. But then the space shuttle Columbia exploded far beneath them. With the launch program suspended indefinitely, these astronauts had suddenly lost their ride back to earth. Out of Orbit chronicles the efforts of the beleaguered mission controls in Houston and Moscow as they worked frantically against the clock, ultimately settling on a plan that felt, at best, like a long shot. Latched to the side of the space station was a Russian-built Soyuz TMA-1 capsule, the rocket equivalent of a 1976 Gremlin. Despite the inherent danger, the Soyuz became the only hope to return Bowersox, Budarin, and Pettit home. Their harrowing journey back to earth is a powerful reminder that space travel remains an incredibly dangerous pursuit.
Perspectives on Our Age: Jacques Ellul Speaks on his Life and Work
by Jacques EllulOriginally broadcast on CBC Radio's Ideas as a series of interviews, Jacques Ellul's first-person approach here makes his ideas accessible to readers looking for new ways of understanding our society, and also gives unique new insight into Ellul's life, his work, and the origins and development of his beliefs and theories. Jacques Ellul, historian, theologian, and sociologist, was one of the foremost and widely known contemporary critics of modern technological society.
Places of Last Resort: The Expansion of the Farm Frontier into the Boreal Forest in Canada, c. 1910-1940
by J. David WoodNortherly locations were desperately sought out after more accessible land further south was taken up. Wood identifies the demographic characteristics of the surging population of land-seekers, showing how some aspects echoed those of earlier settlers. The northern settlers of the interwar years grappled with demanding conditions, which required new adaptations. They were supported in their efforts by politicians, bureaucrats, and religious leaders who had less than innocent reasons for endorsing what were questionable settlement experiments in unopened or abandoned areas. The book includes a series of gripping case studies to illustrate both the face of failure and what appear to have been the ingredients for success in marginal areas.
Progress Without People: New Technology, Unemployment, and the Message of Resistance
by David F. NobleA provocative discussion of the role of technology and its accompanying rhetoric of limitless progress in the concomitant rise of joblessness and unemployment.
The Real World of Technology (The CBC Massey Lectures)
by Ursula FranklinIn this expanded edition of her bestselling 1989 CBC Massey Lectures, renowned scientist and humanitarian Ursula M. Franklin examines the impact of technology upon our lives and addresses the extraordinary changes since The Real World of Technology was first published. In four new chapters, Franklin tackles contentious issues, such as the dilution of privacy and intellectual property rights, the impact of the current technology on government and governance, the shift from consumer capitalism to investment capitalism, and the influence of the Internet upon the craft of writing.
Renewable Energy: Cleaner, fairer ways to power the planet (No-Nonsense Guides #35)
by Danny ChiversFew people doubt the threat of climate change and the urgent need to conquer fossil fuel addiction. But can renewable sources of energy ever be sufficient to provide modern societies with a decent quality of life? This book is clear. They can. And it outlines the strategies to break the barriers to a 100% renewable world. Danny Chivers presents a compelling introduction to renewable technologies for non-technical readers (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and ambient heat, wave and tidal, fuel crops, and energy from waste) and a roadmap to powering the world, not just sustainably, but democratically.
Research Is a Passion With Me: The Autobiography of a Bird Lover
by Margaret Morse Nice Konrad LorenzIn her incredibly productive lifetime (1883-1974), American-born ornithologist Margaret Morse Nice earned the admiration of ornithologists and naturalists in far distant lands. Research Is a Passion With Me is an enthralling autobiography of one of the great individuals in her field and of her time. The prominent California nature writer, Donald Peattie, in commenting on Margaret Nice’s writing ability, stated: "Your art of telling is so good that it conceals how good the science is." And Professor Ernst Mayer of Harvard University said: "Margaret Nice was a remarkable person and only those who know the state of American ornithology when she started her work will appreciate her contribution." "An extraordinary bird watcher. Every summer she and her husband would gather the girls, pack their old car with camping gear, and head off into the wilds to look for new birds. This eccentric way of living was unusual in the early 1920s, but even their youngest daughter adjusted to it. Their older girls shinnied up trees to observe nests and helped in housekeeping tasks around the campsite."- Marcia Bonta, Bird Watcher’s Digest
Sir Sandford Fleming: His Early Diaries, 1845-1853
by Jean Murray ColeSandford Fleming knew fame and many honours later in life, but the path was not always easy. His beginnings are revealed in these early diaries that record his thoughts as an eighteen-year-old leaving his family home in Scotland for Canada. After unsuccessful attempts to get work as a surveyor, he finally made important contacts in Toronto, and through involvement with the Mechanics’ Institute and the (Royal) Canadian Institute, became connected to the leading architects and engineers in the community. His work on major projects, including an ambitious plan for the Toronto Harbour and The Esplanade, ultimately led to his first big railway appointment in 1852. Best known for his role in mapping the Canadian Pacific Railway, he also designed Canada’s first adhesive postage stamp, the three-penny Beaver; was an early promoter of the Pacific cable; and is recognized around the world as the inventor of Standard Time. The recipient of many honours, Fleming was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1897.
The Site: A Personal Odyssey
by Robert W. NeroPoetry or potsherds? That’s the surprising dilemma one of Canada’s well-known nature writers confronts in The Site: A Personal Odyssey, a highly personalized account of a lifetime’s involvement as an avocational archaeologist. With deft descriptive powers, Robert Nero leads us gently into this new facet of his amazing spectrum of interests. Not unexpectedly, there even is poetry in his approach to studying prehistoric remains! From childhood through adolescence, to wartime service with the U.S. Army in the Southwest Pacific, from exploring the vast sand dunes of Lake Athabasca to excavating a 3,000-year-old site he discovered west of Winnipeg, Nero allows us to share his enthusiasm and excitement in outdoor adventures. There is always a wonderful immediacy in his narrative, the mark of a gifted writer, whether expressed in prose or poetry.