Canada

Adil Charkaoui is an immigrant from Morocco who settled in Canada, studied, worked, started a family, then arrested and imprisoned for two years under a security certificate saying he posed a danger. Neither he or his lawyer are allowed to see the evidence against him.

Now, the CBC is reporting that some documents against Charkaoui have been leaked. Charkaoui insists that this is an intentional smear campaign against.

His lawyer Johanne Doyon agrees, saying:

A rising Canadian dollar is posing a challenge for technology
companies, which mainly pay expenses in Canadian currency but sell
their products in U.S. dollars.

In the past three years, the Canadian dollar has risen from 75 cents to 94 cents.

For Ottawa's Elliptic Semiconductor, which sells computer chip designs
to the U.S. and Asia in U.S. dollars, that means fixed costs such as
salaries have risen around 25 per cent relative to income from
individual sales ...

The CBC asked the public to nominate and vote for the "Seven Wonders of Canada". Many worthy entries were nominated.The final list judged by the panel can be seen in the gallery of the Seven Wonders of Canada. Check the full list of nominees, with votes.

The Canadian dollar keeps gaining against the US dollar. It is now at 94 cents, from the historic low of 61.70 in January 2007. A stronger Canadian dollar is good for Canadians when shopping across the border, be it online or in person, or when vacationing in the USA. However, it is not good for Canada's economy as a whole.

Say what you want about Newfoundland. All the Newfie jokes aside, they are a wonderful bunch.

Here is a fisherman whose lobster traps were burned by a vandal. As news traveled from one bay to another cove, people chipped in traps, raw material and money to get him back on his feet.

No wonder he says he chokes up when talking about it.

Good for Newfoundland, Canada and restores some faith in humanity.

The Supreme court of Canada in a 9-0 decision, has overturned the current system of security certificates.Under the security certificates, non-citizens can be held without charge indefinitely based on secret evidence that they cannot see, nor can their lawyers defend them against these secret charges.This is more in line with Canadian values for sure.See also The Record:

A survey in Canada has found that Canadian Muslims are glad and proud to be Canadian.No wonder, since this comes on the heal of a worldwide survey that found that Canadians are the least prejudiced against Muslims in Western countries. The survey also found that Canadian Muslims:

• Do not like the cold weather in Canada (no surprise there).
• have very little sympathy for extremist or terrorist groups.

Although a survey in Summer of 2006 found that Muslims are viewed negatively by Canadians, Canada is at the forefront of nations when it comes to its people's view on Muslims.A recent survey of Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and 19 European countries found that Canada has the least prejudice towards Muslims.

In November 2006, the conservative led government in Canada has proposed income splitting for retired couples, but say would not do it for others.Now, the Finance minister is leaving the door open for income splitting for others.It should be noted that a couple earning $40,000 a year each would pay $3,500 less than if one of them is the sole earner and makes $80,000 a year.

A while back, I wrote about ChangeEverything.ca, which aims to rally together people who want to change themselves, their community and the world.

The site uses Drupal 4.7, and some custom modules that I wrote for the good folks at SocialSignal. Two modules, favorite nodes, and SpreadFireFox affiliates, got released to the community.