By all accounts, it had a rough start.
But CBC News Network, launched as CBC Newsworld in August 1989, has been going strong since then, though not without a few changes and bumps along the way.
According to reviews in the Toronto Star, shown below, the network’s first day was fraught with technical glitches, and the programming was uneven.
But that is expected in the environment of 24-hour news channels, which had gained popularity with the launch of CNN and is now an ubiquitous feature of the news landscape.
But to be always on the air poses unique challenges.
Sharon Musgrave worked at Newsworld since the year it came on the air.
She says it is difficult to maintain freshness when you are covering the same stories hour after hour.
However, she cautions, some repetition is inevitable.
“Viewers don’t watch CBC News Network for 24 hours…you have to assume the person who sees this hour doesn’t see the last hour,” said Musgrave.
Musgrave says, rather than keeping content fresh every time the team does a story, the focus with 24-hour news is to evolve the story throughout the day.
“We try and change it up every hour so that the hit at the end of the day looks nothing like the hit at the beginning of the day,” Musgrave said. This results in a long process where stories are constantly updated by reporters.
Musgrave started out as a technician, doing sound work. Over the last 25 years, she has climbed through the ranks at CBC and is now senior producer in charge of live elections coverage.
She says that although principles of 24-hour news coverage remain the same, the way reporters and producers at CBC gather news has changed dramatically since she joined the network.
“What you will never understand is there were no satellites and no iPhone coverage…you sent your people out to cover an event and they came back,” Musgrave said.
She contrasted that with the news environment of today, where virtually all reporters can file their stories on location.
“We had a young man last year covering the Senate scandal for us. He filed all of his stories on his iPhone,” Musgrave said.
It’s not only the method of filing that has changed. It is also the content and the way news is covered.
A laughing Musgrave said that “people were appalled,” by the introduction of the news crawl across the bottom of the screen. “If you look at it now, banners are always there,” said Musgrave. “They call it mute value.” The banners make sure people are getting news even when the sound on the TV is off.
The substance of coverage has also changed. The days of covering four-hour parliamentary committees are over, and the phone-in show Newsworld used to have in the afternoons would be unheard of today.
“We used to say ‘Okay, something’s happening but we’ll hold that for The National—now Paul Wells [of Maclean’s] has that and he’s tweeting it…you don’t hold anything back anymore,” said Musgrave.
With news becoming digital, and stories being broken online, it might seem as though 24-hour television news could become a thing of the past.
The future for CBC News Network looks precarious in light of job cuts announced at its parent network two weeks ago. The network announced it will cut more than 600 jobs over the next two years.
Last year’s annual report, shown below, said CBC News Network captured an audience share of 1.3 per cent. Its goal was 1.4.
Chuck Thompson, head of media relations for CBC, said in an email exchange that the cuts will affect all CBC News services.
However, he said that “it’s safe to say programming at CBCNN won’t be affected.”

A review of Newsworld’s first day, by Greg Quill:

An article about Newsworld’s first day by Antonia Zerbisias:

CBC’s 2012-2013 Annual Report, with information about CBCNN annotated:

By Kiran Rana

As May approaches and brings restaurant patio season, it will also mark the 25^th anniversary of the landmark legal victory of one former Winnipeg waitress against sexual harassment.

When 21 –year-old Dianna Evangeline took a job waitressing at a local Winnipeg restaurant, like many young Canadians she was looking to make money to pay for her tuition.

But it wasn’t long before she was subjected to sexual harassment by a fellow employee.

After months of constant harassment and verbal abuse with no support from her employer when he was notified, Evangeline quit her job.  She filed a complaint with the Manitoba Human Rights Commission in 1983 against Platy Enterprises Ltd, the owners of Pharos Restaurant.

What followed was a six –year emotional rollercoaster of court dates, defeats and appeals that ultimately brought Evangeline’s case a landmark win before the Supreme Court of Canada.  Her case, Janzen v. Platy Enterprises Ltd. established that sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination and is illegal in Canada.  It also set a precedent, which made employers responsible for the inappropriate actions of their employers.

Evangeline has come a long way from her 21-year old self, which she describes as a “victim.”  She changed her name from Dianna Janzen, left the country, and spent decades silent on the matter, focusing on her own emotional healing.

“A lot of time has gone, a lot of bridges have been mended since that time.  Some not.  It took its toll on a lot of levels,” she says.

Today Evangeline works as a financial analyst in the health care field.  She has two children of her own.

Executive Director of the Manitoba Human Rights Commission Azim Jiwa says that the landmark case changed the way we view sexual harassment because it is now legally covered and recognized by human rights codes.  He says recognizing sexual harassment as a part of sex discrimination provides women in the workplace with legal protection.

According to Jiwa and the Commission, there were 73 sex discrimination complaints filed in 1990, the year following the case.  In contrast, only 34 cases of sex discrimination were filed in 2012.

“That may be because things have improved in the workplace, but we have to consider that it could also be because people aren’t reporting the issues,” he says.

While Evangeline recognizes that times have changed and people are more sensitive towards sexual harassment, she says she is concerned about the vulnerability young people face in their first jobs.

 Aaron Hartman is a first- year student at St. Lawrence College who can relate to this vulnerability.  She’s worked numerous serving jobs in both Ottawa and Kingston in order to pay for rent, tuition and pay off loans.  She says that harassment in the serving industry is more common than statistics show.  Hartman says that some managers will exploit their power and employees are unsure of how to react.

“A lot of girls don’t feel strong enough to say something because they don’t want to lose their jobs and they’re afraid no one will believe them,” she says.

Hartman says that she left her last job because of uninvited sexual advances from her manager.

“I didn’t need the money desperately at the time so it was an easy decision to make,” she says. “But a lot of servers aren’t as lucky.”

Jiwa acknowledges this as well.  “ It’s certainly an issue with regards to human rights complaints,” he says.  “For women in the workplace in particular they are concerned about the impact a complaint will have on their employment.”

Jiwa says that the most important factor in preventing workplace discrimination is education.

“People who are suffering from discrimination should be educated on what their rights are and made aware that they can come forward and will have their issues dealt with in a positive way,” he says.

Jiwa also says that part of educating the public should involve informing potential violators of  human rights why their behaviour is unacceptable.

For Evangeline, whose stance against workplace discrimination changed Canadian law, the hope is that more women will speak out against sex discrimination in the generations to come.

*Documentation used

1) Supreme Court of Canada Case of Janzen v. Platy Enterprises.  I used the court case (hyperlinked above) which I found online after googling the case name.  The case was helpful because it gave the specific chronological order of the case leading up to the Supreme Court decision.  It was also helpful for a general background understanding of  what happened and the reasonings behind why the court ruled in her favour.

2) Manitoba Human Rights Commission Website.  I found the website online after a simple google search.  I used the website for a better understanding of what the Human Rights Commission does.  I also used it to understand the process of filing a complaint.  Since the story was one from Manitoba I used their Human RIghts Commission for a better understanding of what Dianna Evangeline’s process was.  I also used the website to contact the Executive Director who was extremely helpful in our interview.  Following this I compared the Human Rights Commission for Manitoba to provinces like Ontario to ensure they followed similar protocol.

A stalemate drags on in the conflict over logging in Temagami’s old growth forest in Northern Ontario that saw more than 300 aboriginal and environmental activists arrested 25 years ago.

“The result was the forest is still standing,” said Gary Potts, who led a blockade of a logging road in the Temagami region—100 kilometres north of North Bay—as chief of the Teme-Augama Anishnabai aboriginal band in late 1989.

“Indigenous people from all over Ontario and non-Indigenous people, settler people, were supporting us,” said Potts, one of the many arrested in several blockades that took place between June and Dec. 1989—along with Bob Rae a year before he was elected premier. “They were supporting our objective that the road was not to be built and that the forest was not to be cut.”

Construction of the Red Squirrel road was never completed after the Ontario government agreed to a partial halt to logging in the disputed area in 1990. Logging has been nearly stalled since, but the future of the ancient pine forest is still “in limbo,” said Second Chief Joseph Katt of the 500-plus member Temagami First Nation, located on Bear Island in Lake Temagami.

The Teme-Augama Anishnabai’s control over their traditional lands remains elusive following a 1991 Supreme Court ruling that rejected their bid for aboriginal title to 10,360 square kilometres in the region.

The court also ruled that the Crown had breached some of its treaty obligations. Those breaches are the subject of negotiations between the First Nation and the Ontario government that have also reached an impasse.

A settlement was nearly reached in 1993. The Teme-Augama Anishnabai council, which represents both status and non-status Indian community members, approved the settlement. But the Temagami First Nation band council, which represents only status Indians, rejected it.

Since then, the Temagami First Nation changed its membership code to extend membership to non-status Indians. But Katt said the federal government requires that a majority of band members vote in favour of the updated membership code before negotiations can start again. That majority vote has so far proven hard to get.

“I wish the federal government and the provincial government would do the honourable thing and come back to the table and say, ‘let’s resolve this issue’,” Katt said. “I have a generation following up behind me, of children and grandchildren that need a secure future and cannot get a secure future until we have a secure land base we can identify as our own.”

Meanwhile, in the hands of the Ontario government the ancient red and white pines are mostly available to be harvested now, if logging companies want them.

But according to Ministry of Natural Resources forester Don Farintosh, low demand for Ontario lumber has kept many loggers out of the area. Logging companies have opted to harvest from forests that are closer to lumber mills and have better access roads, he said. A lumber mill in the town of Temagami was bought and closed by the province in 1990 following the decision to temporarily scale back logging in the area.

“There hasn’t been as much cutting as originally projected back there, just because of the higher costs and the low demand,” Farintosh said.

But the risk of another protest might be part of what’s keeping the loggers at bay.

“They’d prefer to stay away from a contentious area, but they’re sort of reluctant to back away too much because then they’ll lose options in the future if they walk away from any area that’s under contention,” Farintosh said.

Judy Skidmore represented a pro-development group in favour of logging in the Temagami forest during the blockades in the late 1980s.

“Temagami was just the tip of the iceberg,” Skidmore said. “We still have an Ontario government that’s completely ignorant of the economy of the whole province.”

“Things are worse now than they were 25 years ago.”

Hearts. Everybody has one. But not everyone is born with one that works.

Twenty-five years ago Dr. Wilbert Keon performed Canada’s first infant heart transplant, marking the beginning of an evolution in the procedure and accompanying treatment that gives Canadian babies born with serious heart problems a chance at a life they wouldn’t otherwise have.

Mandy Johnson works with Children’s Heart Network, a Vancouver-based support group for families of children with heart conditions. She remembers the announcement of the first transplant and what it meant for her clients who previously would have had to travel to the U.S. for the surgery.

“For the families it’s huge. They’re dealing with a medical system they don’t understand and a very, very sick child,” said Johnson. “And, at the time, when they came back it was all so new, all the transplant care had to be coordinated as well. It was very challenging in those early days.”

After the first one in 1989, transplants began happening regularly in Toronto and then in Edmonton. In October 2013, the B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver announced the opening of a cardiac transplant program, which means Johnson’s B.C. clients can now stay even closer to home.

Anything that helps make the experience easier is welcomed. Unlike adults or older children, infants under nine-months can receive heart transplants that are incompatible with their blood type and their body is much less likely to reject the heart because they haven’t built-up antibodies yet. However, Dr. Anne Dipchand, head of the cardiac transplant program at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, says infants are at a higher risk of dying while waiting for or during the surgery.

Once they have the heart, infant survival rates are high compared to older recipients. But even that creates new challenges, such as side effects from anti-rejection drugs and delayed development.

“Long ago when you were worried about keeping them alive, that wasn’t necessarily the focus. But now lots more of them are surviving and we have to find ways to address things that are more important for quality of life,” Dipchand said.

It is a problem Kelsey Anderson is grateful to have. Her son Grayson was only two-days-old when he was put at the top of the heart transplant list. The Calgary family watched their new baby struggle to survive for almost seven months. Then, at 1:30 a.m. on April 2, 2013, the phone rang. Anderson says the transplant couldn’t have come at a better time.

“He really was going downhill and probably wouldn’t have made it another week,” said Anderson.

Her son was rushed to the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton to get the transplant. When Anderson saw Grayson after the surgery, the new heart was already making a difference.

“He was always blue before he got his heart and when we first saw him he was pink for the first time.”

Before the month was over, Grayson was out of the hospital and living at home. Almost a year later his prognosis is good: according to the Pediatric Heart Transplant Study Foundation international statistics, over 50 per cent of babies are alive 19 years after their heart transplant.

The limited number of infant heart transplants in Canada means agencies are unable to report exact recent numbers as it can be identifying. However, the Trillium Gift of Life Network reports that from 2003 to 2013, there were 89 heart transplants performed on patients aged five and under in Ontario. There are currently eight patients under the age of 18 waiting for a heart transplant in Ontario.

Documentation

“1989: New Heart for Newborn Baby”

1. This is a CBC video report from September 1989, documenting Wesley Behm, the first Canadian infant to receive a heart transplant, leaving the hospital only a few weeks after the surgery.

2. I found it in my general search for events that happened in 1989. I am interested in health stories, so I Googled ‘health’, ‘Ottawa’ and ‘1989’ and this showed up on one of the results pages.

3. It was helpful because it gave me my general story idea and also the names of the original key actors and institutions where I started my research into what happened and how it the story developed since the original event.

“Pray for Baby Grayson”

Click here for link to Facebook page.

1. This is a Facebook page documenting the experience of a Calgary baby named Grayson Anderson who received a heart transplant last year. It is run by his family, who started it as an online venue during Grayson’s seven months of waiting to recieve a transplant. They have continued to update it with reports about Grayson’s progress and current health.

2. I found this while looking for families who had recently been through the experience of having an infant who received a heart transplant. I Googled “2013” and “Baby heart transplant Canada” and this came up in the search results.

3. This page was helpful because I was able to identify a person who had the exact experience I wanted to include in my story. It was great that it was a social media site because I was able to reach out to Grayson’s mom, who got back to me and agreed to an interview the next day.

It’s been 25 years since the first female fighter pilots took to the skies, but only three women have followed in their path despite efforts to recruit and integrate more women into the military.

The long-term goal established in 2010 was to have 25.1 per cent of the Canadian Forces represented by women. Currently that number is about 14.8 per cent.

The Royal Canadian Air Force has the highest percentage of women, 19 per cent, of the three branches of the armed forces, according to statistics from January 2013.

Maj. Dee Brasseur was one of two women licensed to fly a CF-18 Hornet, the military’s fighter aircraft,  in January 1989. Some of her fellow pilots believed she wasn’t up for the task.

“People said ‘women can’t be pilots because they’re too emotional. Women aren’t smart enough,’” Brasseur said.

Since then, the Canadian Forces has attempted to address discrimination against women in the ranks by creating equal standards, such as for the basic recruitment fitness test.

The 30-year-old test was changed in April 2013 so that men and women have to meet the exact same physical requirements.

“In terms of women being accepted within the culture the standards have to be exactly the same, because anything that is different will be perceived as women being weaker,” said Karen Davis, the leading expert on women in the military at the Department of National Defence.

This policy is a direct contrast to the original intent of different physical fitness requirements for men and women.

“The original professed impetus behind having unequal fitness standards was to encourage women to join by making it easier to join,” said Victoria Tait, a doctoral candidate studying women in the military at Carleton University.

However this double standard meant women had to be exceptional in order to gain the respect of their peers.

Whether it was being excluded from Friday night beers or being unable to find a partner for nighttime training flights, Brasseur said she often felt left out.

Brasseur clearly remembers the night she finally proved herself to her fellow pilots.

“I remember it very well because I almost died,” she said.

Brasseur was out on a training flight with another instructor when the plane “almost exploded.” A bird flew into the aircraft’s one engine, causing it to completely fail and turn the plane into a glider. She safely piloted the glider back to base, and never had problems fitting in at Friday night beers again.

“When I walked into mess that Friday night, you could have heard a pin drop,” Brasseur said. “Over the course of the evening guys would come over and say ‘Oh yeah, pretty exciting flight there.’”

The military has also increased the visibility of women in its organization so that prospective recruits might be able to imagine themselves in the cockpit.

In the 1980s Brasseur was profiled in the media because she was unusual. The Canadian Forces now want women to think of being a fighter pilot as a possible career path.

“There’s a greater representation of women in media and recruitment ads to make it a more desirable occupation,” Tait said.

But despite these changes, fewer women are signing up. Women’s enrollment in basic training fell from 15.58 per cent of new recruits in 2008 to 12.67 per cent in 2011.

In August 2013 the Canadian Forces was subject to criticism when it announced it was adjusting recruitment targets, citing “unattainable” goals, for women, aboriginals and visible minorities.

Davis said the military does not have any current research on why women are not enlisting.

In 2013 Defence Research and Development Canada was tasked with reviewing recruitment numbers and studying the problem, she said.

But the reason might be fairly simple.

“It’s still seen as a masculine organization,” Tait said.

—

This is a Department of National Defence audit published in November 2012 on recruitment and basic training. I found it because I read a National Post article from 2013 on the military missing its equity recruitment targets and I wanted to track down the original source, which I did by going to the DND audit archives on the DND website. It was helpful because it provided me with original statistics to verify the trend the pilots were showing — women aren’t becoming fighter pilots because they’re not enrolling in the military at all. (Click to view complete document.)

This is a backgrounder published by the Department of National Defence on women in the Canadian Forces. I was forwarded this link by the media liaison team at DND. It was helpful because it provided me with current statistics on the military as well as basic facts on the major milestones, such as Maj. Brasseur’s flight training graduations in 1981 and 1989. (Click to view complete document.)

Twenty five years after the Exxon Valdez crashed in Prince William Sound, Alaska, spilling some 11 million gallons of oil, its shadow is still cast over oil tanker policy debate.

As Canada considers increasing oil tanker shipments with the Northern Gateway project, which would add over 200 oil tankers on the B.C. coast a year, environmentalists charge Canada isn’t prepared for spills.

Karen Wristen heads Living Oceans, a B.C. based environmental group calling for a ban on oil tankers near the B.C. coast.

“The first step of prevention for a marine oil spill would be to keep the oil we have on the continent and use it for Canada’s energy security.”

She said Canada’s tanker regulation framework doesn’t adequately cover prevention, response or compensation.

“Immediately south of the boarder there’s a far better example of a regulatory regime equipped to deal with oil,” she said. “Our own is virtually non-existent.”

The U.S. put in place tighter regulations following the Exxon Valdez spill and Canada followed suit with its own policy review.

It changed the Canada Shipping Act, making polluters legally responsible for spill preparedness, paying for damages and creating private sector pollution response organizations.

Canada also now only allows double-hull tankers, which are better for controlling spills, and recently announced more monitoring and prevention measures as opponents voice concerns over ramping up oil exports.

But Wristen said meantime the coastguard has seen cutbacks, regional emergency response personnel have been moved out of province and there’s no West Coast response plan.

And so far B.C.’s inner coasts have had a “voluntary tanker exclusion zone” which keeps tankers away from risky areas. “Of course we’ve got a good track record. We haven’t had to deal with the traffic,” Wristen said.

That’s not how industry sees it. Philip John is the marine fleet manager at the Woodward Group of Companies.

“Canada’s current shipping regulation framework is among the strictest in the world and it’s proved to be very effective,” he said.

In a 2012 policy paper that argues Canada should export more oil off the West Coast, he said the number of reported shipping accidents in Canadian waters declined by as much as 38 per cent over the previous ten years.

He said industry knows they’re well policed so they comply with regulations before they have to be enforced.

John said enforcing a ban would force oil to get shipped by other means, and recent rail disasters like the one in Lac-Megantic have shown marine shipping is less risky.

“Since Exxon Valdez, there has been really no major oil spill. So the marine industry is probably the safest bet.”

Scott Pegau researches herring fish stocks in Prince William Sound, Alaska, and directs the Oil Spill Recovery Institute, which was created in response to the Exxon spill.

“If you were visiting here, you’d never know where it was,” he said.

On a sunny day there it’s picturesque with sparkling ocean water, mountain ranges that shoot up out of the ocean, and plenty of whales and wildlife.

He said it’s very difficult to recover oil from a major spill: only about 8 per cent can be picked up.

“There’s a fair amount out there but it’s not easy to find,” he said.

Much of it is still trapped in layers of sediment. But sea otters and other animals become exposed when they dig it back up.

And the area still hasn’t recovered from a major drop in herring stocks following the spill — although there’s debate over whether the oil caused the fish to disappear.

“It’s affected a lot of families here. They actually still all hold onto their permits in hopes there will be a herring fishery sometime soon.”

While the spill remains a symbolic image of environmental destruction, Pegau said the community’s blackest day was when the U.S. Supreme Court significantly reduced the payout for damages.

“The litigation tears more people up than the environment in the end,” he said.