#Health Care Services in Toronto

[shayerid]

Bringing Healing Home: Onyx Physio's Exceptional In-Home Physiotherapy Services in Toronto

In the bustling urban landscape of Toronto, where time is a precious commodity and convenience is king, accessing quality healthcare can sometimes feel like an arduous task. However, with Onyx Physio's unparalleled in-home physiotherapy services in Toronto, the barriers to wellness are dismantled, and healing is brought right to your doorstep.

At Onyx Physio, we understand that navigating through traffic or finding time amidst busy schedules for physiotherapy appointments can be challenging. That's why we've revolutionized the traditional clinic model by offering personalized care within the comfort and convenience of your own home. With our team of highly skilled and compassionate physiotherapists, we bring relief and rehabilitation to your living room, ensuring that you receive the attention and support you need to thrive.

Whether you're recovering from a sports injury, managing chronic pain, or seeking post-operative rehabilitation, our in-home physiotherapy services in Toronto cater to individuals of all ages and backgrounds. By integrating evidence-based techniques with tailored treatment plans, we empower you to regain strength, mobility, and independence in familiar surroundings.

Onyx Physio's commitment to excellence extends beyond the treatment session itself. We prioritize building lasting relationships with our clients, fostering open communication, and delivering results that exceed expectations. With our flexible scheduling options and transparent pricing, accessing top-tier physiotherapy has never been more accessible or convenient.

In a city as dynamic and diverse as Toronto, Onyx Physio stands out as a beacon of healthcare innovation, providing in-home physiotherapy services that prioritize your well-being above all else. Experience the difference that personalized care and convenience can make in your journey to optimal health with Onyx Physio today.

[peacein-homehealthcare]

How to Find Trained Senior Care in Vaughan?

Caring for seniors is a responsibility that many families in Vaughan, Ontario, take seriously. When it comes to finding trained senior care in Vaughan, you want to ensure that your elderly loved ones receive the best care possible. The process can be challenging, but with the right approach, you can find high-quality senior care services tailored to your family's needs. Here are essential steps to help you locate trained senior care in Vaughan:

Assess Your Senior's Needs: Before you begin your search for senior care, it's crucial to assess your loved one's specific needs. Consider factors such as their medical conditions, mobility, cognitive abilities, and personal preferences. This assessment will serve as a foundation for finding the appropriate level and type of care for your senior family member.

Determine Your Budget: The cost of senior care services can vary widely, so it's essential to establish a budget that aligns with your family's financial situation. Understand the financial implications of senior care and explore available financial assistance options, such as government programs, if applicable.

Research Senior Care Options: Vaughan offers a variety of senior care options, including home care, assisted living facilities, nursing homes, and adult day programs. Research each option to determine which best suits your senior's needs and preferences. Keep in mind that the most suitable option may change as your senior's needs evolve.

Consult with Healthcare Professionals: Healthcare professionals, such as doctors, geriatric specialists, and social workers, can provide valuable insights into the type of senior care required. They can recommend specific services or facilities based on your seniors' health and well-being.

Search for Licensed and Accredited Providers: When searching for senior care providers, prioritize licensed and accredited services. Licensing and accreditation demonstrate a commitment to meeting industry standards and ensuring the highest quality of care. Government agencies, such as the Ontario Ministry of Health, oversee and regulate many senior care providers to ensure their compliance with standards.

Seek Recommendations: Ask friends, family members, or neighbors for recommendations based on their experiences with senior care in Vaughan. Personal referrals can be invaluable in finding trusted providers.

Read Online Reviews: Online reviews and testimonials can provide valuable insights into the reputation of senior care providers. Be sure to research and read reviews on trusted platforms to gauge the satisfaction of other families who have utilized their services.

Conduct Site Visits: Schedule visits to the senior care facilities or meet with home care agencies in person. This allows you to see the environment and interact with the staff. Pay attention to the cleanliness, safety measures, and overall atmosphere to ensure it aligns with your senior's comfort and well-being.

Verify Staff Qualifications: Trained senior care providers should have qualified and experienced staff. Inquire about the qualifications and training of the caregivers or staff who will be directly responsible for your senior's care. It's essential to ensure they have the necessary skills and expertise to meet your seniors' specific needs.

Discuss Care Plans and Contracts: When you've identified a potential senior care provider, discuss the care plan in detail. Understand the services offered, scheduling, costs, and any contractual obligations. Ensure that all your concerns and questions are addressed before making a decision.

Check References: Request and verify references from previous clients or families who have used the services of the senior care provider. Speaking with others who have firsthand experience can offer valuable insights into the provider's reliability and quality of care.

Stay Involved: Even after you've selected a senior care provider, it's important to stay involved in your senior's care. Regular communication with the provider and your loved one will help ensure that their needs are met and the care provided is of the highest quality.

Finding trained senior care in Vaughan is a significant decision, and it requires careful consideration. By following these steps, you can help ensure that your senior family member receives the best care possible, enhancing their quality of life and overall well-being.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Restaurant staff losing their jobs for cheering on a pro-Palestinian protest. A Palestinian Canadian journalist fired for her social media posts calling for a #freepalestine. Medical residents flagged to potential hiring committees for their support of Palestinians.

These are just some of the many instances across Canada in which employees and students have faced firings, suspensions or calls for them to not be hired based on their publicly stated political stance on the Israel-Hamas war. It's a trend that has been reported not just in Canada but also in the U.S. and Europe, and across various industries, including media, law, health care and the service sector. 

According to three Ontario-based lawyers who spoke to CBC News, some employers and institutions have been quick to take action against employees or students, creating an environment in which many are afraid they will lose their jobs or face consequences to their education if they express a political stance in favour of one side — Palestinians — during this war.

"I can tell you personally, in the last month and a half, I've probably spoken with someone at least once a day [about this]," said Jackie Esmonde, a labour lawyer at Toronto-based firm Cavalluzzo Law. "They're not always cases that we take on, but we do have in the range of eight to 10 cases that we're actively working on at the moment.

"I'm not seeing people making what I would consider hate speech or discriminatory speech." [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

Note from the poster @el-shab-hussein: the article later goes on in detail about how pro-Palestinian prospective employees and current employees are stalked by zionists online and added to lists and have their employers called to get them fired or dropped from future employment. This is not something new to Palestinian activists. This is something that factually happened to a recent graduate Palestinian activist in Montreal, who I will not name for his safety.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The moral injury of having your work enshittified

This Monday (November 27), I'm appearing at the Toronto Metro Reference Library with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On November 29, I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

This week, I wrote about how the Great Enshittening – in which all the digital services we rely on become unusable, extractive piles of shit – did not result from the decay of the morals of tech company leadership, but rather, from the collapse of the forces that discipline corporate wrongdoing:

https://locusmag.com/2023/11/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-dont-be-evil/

The failure to enforce competition law allowed a few companies to buy out their rivals, or sell goods below cost until their rivals collapsed, or bribe key parts of their supply chain not to allow rivals to participate:

https://www.engadget.com/google-reportedly-pays-apple-36-percent-of-ad-search-revenues-from-safari-191730783.html

The resulting concentration of the tech sector meant that the surviving firms were stupendously wealthy, and cozy enough that they could agree on a common legislative agenda. That regulatory capture has allowed tech companies to violate labor, privacy and consumer protection laws by arguing that the law doesn't apply when you use an app to violate it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

But the regulatory capture isn't just about preventing regulation: it's also about creating regulation – laws that make it illegal to reverse-engineer, scrape, and otherwise mod, hack or reconfigure existing services to claw back value that has been taken away from users and business customers. This gives rise to Jay Freeman's perfectly named doctrine of "felony contempt of business-model," in which it is illegal to use your own property in ways that anger the shareholders of the company that sold it to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Undisciplined by the threat of competition, regulation, or unilateral modification by users, companies are free to enshittify their products. But what does that actually look like? I say that enshittification is always precipitated by a lost argument.

It starts when someone around a board-room table proposes doing something that's bad for users but good for the company. If the company faces the discipline of competition, regulation or self-help measures, then the workers who are disgusted by this course of action can say, "I think doing this would be gross, and what's more, it's going to make the company poorer," and so they win the argument.

But when you take away that discipline, the argument gets reduced to, "Don't do this because it would make me ashamed to work here, even though it will make the company richer." Money talks, bullshit walks. Let the enshittification begin!

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/22/who-wins-the-argument/#corporations-are-people-my-friend

But why do workers care at all? That's where phrases like "don't be evil" come into the picture. Until very recently, tech workers participated in one of history's tightest labor markets, in which multiple companies with gigantic war-chests bid on their labor. Even low-level employees routinely fielded calls from recruiters who dangled offers of higher salaries and larger stock grants if they would jump ship for a company's rival.

Employers built "campuses" filled with lavish perks: massages, sports facilities, daycare, gourmet cafeterias. They offered workers generous benefit packages, including exotic health benefits like having your eggs frozen so you could delay fertility while offsetting the risks normally associated with conceiving at a later age.

But all of this was a transparent ruse: the business-case for free meals, gyms, dry-cleaning, catering and massages was to keep workers at their laptops for 10, 12, or even 16 hours per day. That egg-freezing perk wasn't about helping workers plan their families: it was about thumbing the scales in favor of working through your entire twenties and thirties without taking any parental leave.

In other words, tech employers valued their employees as a means to an end: they wanted to get the best geeks on the payroll and then work them like government mules. The perks and pay weren't the result of comradeship between management and labor: they were the result of the discipline of competition for labor.

This wasn't really a secret, of course. Big Tech workers are split into two camps: blue badges (salaried employees) and green badges (contractors). Whenever there is a slack labor market for a specific job or skill, it is converted from a blue badge job to a green badge job. Green badges don't get the food or the massages or the kombucha. They don't get stock or daycare. They don't get to freeze their eggs. They also work long hours, but they are incentivized by the fear of poverty.

Tech giants went to great lengths to shield blue badges from green badges – at some Google campuses, these workforces actually used different entrances and worked in different facilities or on different floors. Sometimes, green badge working hours would be staggered so that the armies of ragged clickworkers would not be lined up to badge in when their social betters swanned off the luxury bus and into their airy adult kindergartens.

But Big Tech worked hard to convince those blue badges that they were truly valued. Companies hosted regular town halls where employees could ask impertinent questions of their CEOs. They maintained freewheeling internal social media sites where techies could rail against corporate foolishness and make Dilbert references.

And they came up with mottoes.

Apple told its employees it was a sound environmental steward that cared about privacy. Apple also deliberately turned old devices into e-waste by shredding them to ensure that they wouldn't be repaired and compete with new devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

And even as they were blocking Facebook's surveillance tools, they quietly built their own nonconsensual mass surveillance program and lied to customers about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Facebook told employees they were on a "mission to connect every person in the world," but instead deliberately sowed discontent among its users and trapped them in silos that meant that anyone who left Facebook lost all their friends:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

And Google promised its employees that they would not "be evil" if they worked at Google. For many googlers, that mattered. They wanted to do something good with their lives, and they had a choice about who they would work for. What's more, they did make things that were good. At their high points, Google Maps, Google Mail, and of course, Google Search were incredible.

My own life was totally transformed by Maps: I have very poor spatial sense, need to actually stop and think to tell my right from my left, and I spent more of my life at least a little lost and often very lost. Google Maps is the cognitive prosthesis I needed to become someone who can go anywhere. I'm profoundly grateful to the people who built that service.

There's a name for phenomenon in which you care so much about your job that you endure poor conditions and abuse: it's called "vocational awe," as coined by Fobazi Ettarh:

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

Ettarh uses the term to apply to traditionally low-waged workers like librarians, teachers and nurses. In our book Chokepoint Capitalism, Rebecca Giblin and I talked about how it applies to artists and other creative workers, too:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

But vocational awe is also omnipresent in tech. The grandiose claims to be on a mission to make the world a better place are not just puffery – they're a vital means of motivating workers who can easily quit their jobs and find a new one to put in 16-hour days. The massages and kombucha and egg-freezing are not framed as perks, but as logistical supports, provided so that techies on an important mission can pursue a shared social goal without being distracted by their balky, inconvenient meatsuits.

Steve Jobs was a master of instilling vocational awe. He was full of aphorisms like "we're here to make a dent in the universe, otherwise why even be here?" Or his infamous line to John Sculley, whom he lured away from Pepsi: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?"

Vocational awe cuts both ways. If your workforce actually believes in all that high-minded stuff, if they actually sacrifice their health, family lives and self-care to further the mission, they will defend it. That brings me back to enshittification, and the argument: "If we do this bad thing to the product I work on, it will make me hate myself."

The decline in market discipline for large tech companies has been accompanied by a decline in labor discipline, as the market for technical work grew less and less competitive. Since the dotcom collapse, the ability of tech giants to starve new entrants of market oxygen has shrunk techies' dreams.

Tech workers once dreamed of working for a big, unwieldy firm for a few years before setting out on their own to topple it with a startup. Then, the dream shrank: work for that big, clumsy firm for a few years, then do a fake startup that makes a fake product that is acquihired by your old employer, as an incredibly inefficient and roundabout way to get a raise and a bonus.

Then the dream shrank again: work for a big, ugly firm for life, but get those perks, the massages and the kombucha and the stock options and the gourmet cafeteria and the egg-freezing. Then it shrank again: work for Google for a while, but then get laid off along with 12,000 co-workers, just months after the company does a stock buyback that would cover all those salaries for the next 27 years:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

Tech workers' power was fundamentally individual. In a tight labor market, tech workers could personally stand up to their bosses. They got "workplace democracy" by mouthing off at town hall meetings. They didn't have a union, and they thought they didn't need one. Of course, they did need one, because there were limits to individual power, even for the most in-demand workers, especially when it came to ghastly, long-running sexual abuse from high-ranking executives:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html

Today, atomized tech workers who are ordered to enshittify the products they take pride in are losing the argument. Workers who put in long hours, missed funerals and school plays and little league games and anniversaries and family vacations are being ordered to flush that sacrifice down the toilet to grind out a few basis points towards a KPI.

It's a form of moral injury, and it's palpable in the first-person accounts of former workers who've exited these large firms or the entire field. The viral "Reflecting on 18 years at Google," written by Ian Hixie, vibrates with it:

https://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1700627373

Hixie describes the sense of mission he brought to his job, the workplace democracy he experienced as employees' views were both solicited and heeded. He describes the positive contributions he was able to make to a commons of technical standards that rippled out beyond Google – and then, he says, "Google's culture eroded":

Decisions went from being made for the benefit of users, to the benefit of Google, to the benefit of whoever was making the decision.

In other words, techies started losing the argument. Layoffs weakened worker power – not just to defend their own interest, but to defend the users interests. Worker power is always about more than workers – think of how the 2019 LA teachers' strike won greenspace for every school, a ban on immigration sweeps of students' parents at the school gates and other community benefits:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Hixie attributes the changes to a change in leadership, but I respectfully disagree. Hixie points to the original shareholder letter from the Google founders, in which they informed investors contemplating their IPO that they were retaining a controlling interest in the company's governance so that they could ignore their shareholders' priorities in favor of a vision of Google as a positive force in the world:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

Hixie says that the leadership that succeeded the founders lost sight of this vision – but the whole point of that letter is that the founders never fully ceded control to subsequent executive teams. Yes, those executive teams were accountable to the shareholders, but the largest block of voting shares were retained by the founders.

I don't think the enshittification of Google was due to a change in leadership – I think it was due to a change in discipline, the discipline imposed by competition, regulation and the threat of self-help measures. Take ads: when Google had to contend with one-click adblocker installation, it had to constantly balance the risk of making users so fed up that they googled "how do I block ads?" and then never saw another ad ever again.

But once Google seized the majority of the mobile market, it was able to funnel users into apps, and reverse-engineering an app is a felony (felony contempt of business-model) under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to install an ad-blocker.

And as Google acquired control over the browser market, it was likewise able to reduce the self-help measures available to browser users who found ads sufficiently obnoxious to trigger googling "how do I block ads?" The apotheosis of this is the yearslong campaign to block adblockers in Chrome, which the company has sworn it will finally do this coming June:

https://www.tumblr.com/tevruden/734352367416410112/you-have-until-june-to-dump-chrome

My contention here is not that Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in personnel via the promotion of managers who have shitty ideas. Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in discipline, as the negative consequences of heeding those shitty ideas were abolished thanks to monopoly.

This is bad news for people like me, who rely on services like Google Maps as cognitive prostheses. Elizabeth Laraki, one of the original Google Maps designers, has published a scorching critique of the latest GMaps design:

https://twitter.com/elizlaraki/status/1727351922254852182

Laraki calls out numerous enshittificatory design-choices that have left Maps screens covered in "crud" – multiple revenue-maximizing elements that come at the expense of usability, shifting value from users to Google.

What Laraki doesn't say is that these UI elements are auctioned off to merchants, which means that the business that gives Google the most money gets the greatest prominence in Maps, even if it's not the best merchant. That's a recurring motif in enshittified tech platforms, most notoriously Amazon, which makes $31b/year auctioning off top search placement to companies whose products aren't relevant enough to your query to command that position on their own:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Enshittification begets enshittification. To succeed on Amazon, you must divert funds from product quality to auction placement, which means that the top results are the worst products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

The exception is searches for Apple products: Apple and Amazon have a cozy arrangement that means that searches for Apple products are a timewarp back to the pre-enshittification Amazon, when the company worried enough about losing your business to heed the employees who objected to sacrificing search quality as part of a merchant extortion racket:

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gives-apple-special-treatment-while-others-suffer-junk-ads-2023-11

Not every tech worker is a tech bro, in other words. Many workers care deeply about making your life better. But the microeconomics of the boardroom in a monopolized tech sector rewards the worst people and continuously promotes them. Forget the Peter Principle: tech is ruled by the Sam Principle.

As OpenAI went through four CEOs in a single week, lots of commentators remarked on Sam Altman's rise and fall and rise, but I only found one commentator who really had Altman's number. Writing in Today in Tabs, Rusty Foster nailed Altman to the wall:

https://www.todayintabs.com/p/defective-accelerationism

Altman's history goes like this: first, he founded a useless startup that raised $30m, only to be acquired and shuttered. Then Altman got a job running Y Combinator, where he somehow failed at taking huge tranches of equity from "every Stanford dropout with an idea for software to replace something Mommy used to do." After that, he founded OpenAI, a company that he claims to believe presents an existential risk to the entire human risk – which he structured so incompetently that he was then forced out of it.

His reward for this string of farcical, mounting failures? He was put back in charge of the company he mis-structured despite his claimed belief that it will destroy the human race if not properly managed.

Altman's been around for a long time. He founded his startup in 2005. There've always been Sams – of both the Bankman-Fried varietal and the Altman genus – in tech. But they didn't get to run amok. They were disciplined by their competitors, regulators, users and workers. The collapse of competition led to an across-the-board collapse in all of those forms of discipline, revealing the executives for the mediocre sociopaths they always were, and exposing tech workers' vocational awe for the shabby trick it was from the start.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

[fatehbaz]

Hannah and Chris: [...] For Ruth Wilson Gilmore, for example, “Life in rehearsal” is one way to describe abolition. To her, this means “building life-affirming institutions” whilst refusing to reproduce rules or remain with regret. Instead of signifying absence, it is both a present and about presence. Ariella Aïsha Azoulay makes the case for “rehearsals with others”, to question sovereignty and its operative mechanisms. For her, this entails imagining camaraderie and alliances and reversing the temporality of opposing sovereign violence “to imagine its demise not as a promise to come but as that which others have already experienced and made possible”. Moten and Harney use the term “rehearsal” to explain their idea of “study” as an always unfinished and improvisatory collaboration: “And since we’re rehearsing, you might as well pick up an instrument too.” [...]

Robyn: Every day I wake up and rehearse the person I would like to be. [...] To use the words of the late, great, C.L.R. James, “every cook can govern.” Organizing, whether formal or informal, whether geared toward a short term goal or a massive, transformative shift: this is what happens when people consciously decide to come together and “shape change,” to think with Octavia Butler. And to move through the world with the intention of making it a better place for living creatures to inhabit. [...] And most importantly, it’s an invitation to join in. And it is a reminder that liberation is not a destination but an ongoing process, a praxis. Every day, groups of parents, librarians, nurses, temp workers, ordinary people, tired of the horrors of the present, come together to decide what kind of world they want to inhabit. [...]

---

Robyn: [...] [T]here were 21 hunger strikes in Canadian jails, prisons and detention centers between March 2020 and March 2021 [...]. "[W]ithin this architecture of oppression, we are a vibrant community [...] who eat together, [...] play together, and protect each other from a system that has exploited us.” [...]

[Robyn:] I’m thinking here of Claude McKay’s words from “If We Must Die”: “Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!” Now of course fighting back looks like many things [...]. But it’s also much more: for so many people, whether abandoned by the state in a [public health crisis] [...] or abandoned by society in a carceral site, fighting back, by virtue of necessity as well as of ethics, is building, always building. This is the freedom work, and the love work, and the care work, of rehearsal. [...]

Robyn: [...] [I]t’s crucial, I think, that we remember that regimes of private property - and, crucially, the carceral state that entrenches them - are continually being contested, have never been written in stone, and are far from inevitable or permanent fixtures of planetary and earthly life. […] Elected officials chose, and choose every day, to spend millions of public dollars on criminalizing homelessness rather than address its root causes: the unaffordability of a city caused by the unchecked powers of developers and the mass abandonment of Black, Indigenous, disabled peoples, and people living with mental health issues. [...] But new visions for living are forwarded every day [...]. Mutual aid [...] support projects [...] in Toronto and Hamilton, [...] [in] Edmonton [and] [...] in Halifax are supporting [homeless people] [...] against city evictions, ensuring food, water, and medical services where their city has failed to do so. [...] Here I’d like to bring in the words of [G.I.] [...], describing [...] the longer-term [homeless] support organizing that came out of it: That is one of the most revolutionary things: to build community with people who our government and our society tells us not to: Black, Brown and houseless people standing side by side, to re-imagine what the world could look like.

---

All text above by: Robyn Maynard, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Hannah Voegele, and Christopher Griffin. “Every Day We Must Get Up and Relearn the World: An Interview with Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.” Interfere: Journal for Critical Thought and Radical Politics. 19 November 2021. At: doi dot org slash 10.17613/9w3e-n182 [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

'We don't want to know about abused men': Inside the hidden world of male victims

By: Ari David Blaff

Published: Nov 7, 2024

A residence in north Toronto in one of the rare places in Canada where abused men and fathers with children can find emergency shelter

Matt feared his wife was going to kill him. He had seen violent streaks before. Once, when he accused her of infidelities, Matt said she pulled a knife and “put it (at) my throat.”

Fleeing wasn’t an option because they had young children. He felt stuck without a safe refuge where he could take them. “As long as I had my kids, that’s all I cared about,” Matt said.

He expected the police wouldn’t take him seriously: a six-foot-tall Caribbean man scared of his wife. “If anything happens and she calls the cops, they’re going to come straight at me,” he told the National Post, requesting anonymity to protect his children.

A subsequent fight over cheating led to a similar violent encounter. Again, his partner allegedly threatened him with a knife and “said she’s gonna kill me,” according to Matt. Again, he refrained from calling the police, instead phoning a family member to tell them about the situation. The alarmed family member called the cops.

When the police arrived on the scene, Matt said he was asked to leave the premises. “The conversation went from ‘what happened?’ to ‘what did you do?’ really quick,” he said. It wasn’t until Matt, under police escort, went back into his house to get some belongings that the officers started to take his story seriously. His wife lost it, Matt said, verbally attacking him in their presence.

“I heard the police officer under his breath say, ‘Oh shit, that really happened,’” Matt said. A female police officer escorting Matt away from their house acknowledged his options were limited, but she had a suggestion for him of a safe haven in Toronto where he could stay temporarily with his kids.

“There isn’t a lot of help for men in situations like these but give this place a try. It might help you out,” he recalled her saying.

Down a stretch of York University’s student ghetto in the northern part of Toronto sits a non-descript, three-storey, red-brick townhouse that is a national treasure of sorts. It is one of the rare places in Canada where abused men and fathers with children can find emergency shelter.

“We’re the only game in town as far as family violence for fathers and children,” said Justin Trottier, who oversees the Family Shelter for Abused Men and Children. Opened during the height of the pandemic in March 2021, the shelter is an effort more than seven years in the making by Trottier and the Canadian Centre for Men and Families (CCMF).

The non-profit men’s centre has offered counselling and mental health services for male victims of abuse and violence —“filling critical gaps in men’s services” — since 2014. But the outpouring of demand for an emergency shelter pushed them to open an actual residence.

[ ‘The demand’s always been high,’ said Justin Trottier, executive director of the Family Shelter for Abused Men and Children in north Toronto, part of the non-profit Canadian Centre for Men and Families. The emergency shelter residence opened in March 2021 at the height of the pandemic. ]

“We would get calls for years before we opened and that’s what lit the fire under us to open a shelter. The demand’s always been high,” Trottier said.

There are nearly 600 shelters across Canada for victims of domestic abuse and intimate partner violence (IPV), but only four per cent of them serve men. More than two-thirds of the shelters (68 per cent) are mandated to serve women and their children, while an additional 11 per cent serve women only. According to Statistics Canada, of the approximately 24 emergency abuse shelters in 2021-22 that opened their doors to men, virtually all of them also served women. More than 99 per cent of the 46,827 residents of domestic abuse shelters in 2021-22 were women and their children.

For male victims of domestic abuse, that leaves a smattering of dots on a vast map of Canada where they might find safety. Even rarer are places where abused fathers can bring their children.

Most people are aware of the tragic consequences for women of intimate partner violence. In June, Carly Stannard-Walsh and her two children, Madison and Hunter, were shot dead in a murder-suicide in Harrow, Ont. They were killed by Carly’s husband and the children’s father, Steven Walsh.

In the five years between 2014 to 2019, police-reported data showed 80 per cent of the 500 Canadian lives lost to domestic violence were women — 400 mothers, sisters, daughters and girlfriends killed by people in their lives. Overall, in 2019, women were the victims of 79 per cent of police-reported criminal incidents of intimate partner violence.

But what is less well-known is that men are also victims of domestic abuse and intimate partner violence, including physical abuse, sexual and psychological abuse. The numbers don’t show up in police reports because, like Matt, men are less likely to call police.

Matt was one of the dads who turned up at Trottier’s doorstep with nowhere else to go. He thought about going to a motel but couldn’t afford it long-term. He also considered returning to his family in New York, but that would be too difficult with his kids. One shelter offered him a bed, but said no to the children, which meant they would be left with their mother.

About 90 per cent of residents at the Toronto emergency shelter are “male survivors of family violence and their children,” Trottier told the Post. But they also open their doors to male refugees, those suffering mental health issues and boys alienated from their families. “There is no hard rule against men in other situations,” he said.

Residents are offered a range of support, what Trottier likes to call “wraparound services,” from providing clothing and food, to emergency trauma counselling, mental health therapy, peer support and mentoring, fathering classes and legal aid. Stays are capped at 90 days. Trottier said the waitlist frequently balloons between four weeks and two months.

The majority of CCMF’s operating funds come from private contributions and institutional donations. The federal government does not provide any money, nor do most provincial governments. Alberta is one of the rare exceptions; the province gave CCMF just over $9,000 last year to help create a domestic abuse program.

On a recent visit, the shelter is a hive of activity. There are intake workers and mental health counsellors mixed in among the residents. Trottier is there most days, too, as well as graduate students in social work from neighbouring York University.

Many residents have day jobs, so they are coming and going. An observer arriving at the shelter just before lunch on a weekday, finds no kids in sight. Trottier said that children accompanying their fathers usually stick to the routines they had prior to arriving — going to daycare, babysitters and school.

From the outside, the shelter looks like any other townhouse, aside from the abundance of security cameras and signs calling for doors to be locked at all times. A rooftop patio offers panoramic views of the sprawling suburbia. But the overall aesthetic at the shelter is reminiscent of college dorms or cheap first apartments — drab-coloured walls, donated second-hand furniture. A massive kitchen has floor-to-ceiling cupboards stocked with personally labelled food. Residents buy their own groceries and cook their own meals.

[ A former resident sits in the modest library at the Family Shelter for Abused Men and Children in north Toronto. Stays are capped at 90 days. ]

The shelter can host up to two dozen people or 10 families “depending on size,” Trottier said. With the help of bunk beds, some rooms on the second floor are big enough for a father and three children. There is a kid’s room full of toys, a library and meeting space that can be converted into a bedroom, laundry facilities, even a small backyard.

A small network across Quebec, Maison Oxygène — Oxygen House — fills a similar gap in providing emergency accommodation for fathers and their children but does not position itself as a domestic abuse shelter. The non-profit is funded exclusively by donations and has faced chronic financial pains.

Outside of these options for male victims of intimate partner violence and their children, there aren’t many others, Trottier said.

* * *

Intimate partner violence, also known as spousal abuse or domestic violence, has been identified by the World Health Organization as a major global public health concern, impacting millions of people of all genders, ages, socioeconomic, racial, religious and cultural backgrounds. It can range from emotional and financial abuse to physical and sexual assault. It can happen within a marriage or dating relationship, whether or not partners live together or are sexually intimate, and after the relationship has ended. It can occur in public and private spaces, as well as online.

And it can happen regardless of gender. Self-reported data through surveys, questionnaires and the like, show the less publicized, much broader picture of male victims of intimate partner violence.

In Canada in 2018, self-reported statistics on abuse from StatsCan showed that 23 per cent of women experienced some form of abuse compared to 17 per cent of men. Forty-four per cent of women reported sexual abuse compared to 36 per cent of men, with similar comparisons for psychological abuse.

And though women are seven times more likely than men to be killed by their partners, men are not absent from those harsh victim statistics. In 2021, men comprised nearly a quarter (24 per cent) of 90 intimate partner homicides. National media often overlook stories such as Blake Bibby, a 36-year-old Newmarket, Ont. man fatally stabbed by his ex-girlfriend in July.

“Spousal homicide is not a good measure of domestic abuse because it is so rare,” said Don Dutton, a University of British Columbia psychology professor who has been studying the domestic violence issue for decades and has authored several books on the subject, including Rethinking Domestic Violence.

Dutton spent part of his early career in the ‘70s as a court-mandated counsellor working with men accused of abusing their wives. Over the decades, he began to see domestic violence as more of a two-way street with female abusers often overlooked in academic and legal circles.

Dutton said there’s an obvious explanation for the chasm between official police data that shows females as the primary victims of domestic abuse, and the self-reported data that suggest the ratio of abuse between the sexes is closer than most think: Men are often too self-conscious to come forward to police.

He found that men report domestic abuse to police at a tenth of the rate as women and that their reports are not taken as seriously by law enforcement.

Erin Pizzey had a similar wake-up call during her work as a pioneering force behind the emergency shelter movement in the United Kingdom back in the ‘70s. Her work set off a chain reaction as she spearheaded the creation of spaces for women escaping abusive partners to get back on their feet.

Within four years of opening her first shelter in 1971, more than two dozen similar initiatives had sprung up across the U.K. with more in the pipeline. “She single-handedly did as much for the cause of women as any other woman alive,” one British journalist reflected in 1997.

However, Pizzey grew disillusioned with the movement and what she viewed as the mainstreaming of men-bashing among activists. Her work on the frontiers of domestic abuse changed her view of domestic violence: Men were not solely perpetrators of violence, but also victims of abuse. True equality meant helping both sexes in need.

“I was the one who was saying, ‘Hey, hang on, this is not a gender issue. Men are equally in need of refuge; men are equally in need of social services,’” Pizzey, now 85, told the National Post over Zoom from her home in London.

“Apart from those of us who work in the field of domestic violence and dysfunction, we have been brainwashed into believing that all men are potential abusers. So, no, I don’t believe that there is much understanding or interest in male suffering or abuse,” Pizzey said.

Other academics and professionals in the field of social services have arrived at similar conclusions.

Elizabeth Bates, a specialist in the topic at Cumbria University in the United Kingdom, said in an email to the National Post that the perception one draws about domestic abuse is heavily influenced by the dataset one picks. Whereas police reports show a “large majority of perpetrators being male and victims being female,” survey data from government officials in England and Wales show “that for every three victims of domestic abuse, one is male and two are female,” she said.

In the academic literature, which typically relies on “self-reported data,” Bates said the ratio of female to male victims is closer to a 50-50 split. “There are a number of reasons for this difference, but one of the main ones, I think, are around the barriers faced in reporting victimization,” Bates said.

“There are barriers for any victim” Bates continued. “But I think for men, the stigma and stereotypes are still very prominent, and it prevents men from being able to disclose and so be included within those statistics.”

Alexandra Lysova, a criminology professor at Simon Fraser University, told the National Post that Canada’s federally commissioned General Social Survey (GSS) victimization survey in 2019 also found “very, very close” ratios between female and male victims of intimate partner violence, both when it comes to psychological and physical abuse.

Such findings should encourage the public to move beyond stereotypes of domestic abuse that depict men exclusively as abusers, said Lysova, because a vast swath of society is being deprived of much-needed social services. “What we see is that the tip of this iceberg, and the whole large part of intimate partner violence is underwater, not known to the police,” Lysova said.

“I have this conversation so many times: ‘Oh, it’s happening more by men to women.’ But no, that’s not accurate. What is accurate is that more women are reporting than men, and more women are reporting when the perpetrator is a man compared to when the man is abused by a woman,” said Phil Mitchell, a British counsellor specializing in male abuse victims.

When asked about the differences between men and women when it comes to reported incidents of domestic violence, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police directed the National Post’s request for comment to the Toronto Police Service. While the RCMP “absolutely investigates cases of domestic violence,” an RCMP spokesperson explained to the National Post by email, the matter is mostly dealt with “at the divisional (provincial) level.”

“TPS can only speak on intimate partner violence occurrences that are reported to us, recognizing that not every incident of IPV is reported to police. Reported incidents are thoroughly investigated by officers with specialized training,” Stephanie Sayer, a TPS spokesperson wrote in an email to the National Post.

“While women account for the vast majority of people who experience IPV, this issue affects individuals of all genders, ages, races, socioeconomic statuses, ethnicities, religions, educational levels, and cultural backgrounds. We encourage anyone experiencing IPV to report it to the police, regardless of gender, and to seek help from available support services in Toronto,” Sayer continued.

* * *

The Toronto shelter serves a crucial role helping male victims of abuse, including fathers and their kids, caught in the social services gap.

Peter, who asked that his name be changed for privacy reasons, was in his thirties when the fallout from a bad marriage “caused me to lose my job, my house and pretty much extinguished my family.” He turned to his extended Jamaican family in Toronto, but the situation grew intolerable. He was living with an alcoholic uncle in an uninsulated garage.

“He wanted to, I guess, take his rage out on me,” Peter said, recalling the incident which finally brought him to the shelter. When he wasn’t paying attention, Peter’s uncle punched him in the mouth.

“I wasn’t gonna do that (anymore). It was a common occurrence,” Peter continued as he spoke outside his basement room at the shelter. “I’ve seen things happen. I’ve heard of people accidentally getting hit the wrong way. I don’t want to be one of those people.

“I was desperate, you know. I was kind of skeptical about even coming… I thought, a big warehouse, cots everywhere,” Peter said. “I called this place, and they told me it was nothing like that.”

[ A former resident of the Family Shelter for Abused Men and Children. The shelter can house up to two dozen people or 10 families. About 90 per cent of the residents are male survivors of family violence and their children. ]

His time at the shelter has given him breathing room to contemplate his next steps. “As much as I like the people here, I don’t want to be here with them. Sorry guys! I hope you guys don’t want me here,” he teased as another resident, Malik, stood nearby. “I’m just gonna rebuild my life.”

Malik arrived in Canada from Japan via Sri Lanka with two children and a rocky marriage in tow. Within two months of arriving, his wife left with the kids and falsely accused him of abuse, he claims. Forced to find a new place to live in the middle of the pandemic, Malik found a bedroom in a shared apartment.

Then the roommate began showing signs of “severe mental breakdown,” he said. The roommate tried to attack Malik last Christmas. “I got the hell out,” he said, as he sat on his bed in the shelter.

A friend picked him up and he got connected with a central intake system that directed him to the shelter. There was nearly a three-week waitlist. When he was finally able to check in, “it was a huge relief. Like, finally, I was breathing after two years,” he said, smiling.

Malik recalled the first thing he did when he got settled in the shelter: “I just slept for a couple of days. I was so tired of two years of nonstop stress.” He sees his kids on weekends, taking them to the shelter, a privilege he would not have in a typical homeless or temporary housing facility.

* * *

The Toronto shelter wasn’t the first to offer a safe haven for abused Canadian men. In the 1990s, Earl Silverman trudged across Calgary fleeing a violent wife. He desperately searched for a place to get back on his feet, but whenever Silverman tried to check himself into a domestic abuse shelter, he was turned away and encouraged to seek counselling instead.

“When I went into the community looking for some support services, I couldn’t find any. There were a lot for women, and the only programs for men were for anger management. As a victim, I was re-victimized by having these services telling me I wasn’t a victim, but I was a perpetrator,” Silverman told the National Post in 2013.

He became an advocate for male victims of spousal abuse. Silverman created the Men’s Alternative Safe House, the first and only refuge in Canada at that time for male victims of domestic abuse. At its peak, the facility housed just over a dozen men and a handful of children, funded mostly through private donations but also from Silverman’s own pocket. He’d turned to the government for help but was turned away.

“Family violence has gone from a social issue to only a woman’s issue. So, any support for men is interpreted as being against women,” he told an Alberta media outlet at the time.

The battle for recognition and acceptance took its toll on Silverman. He’d fought his share of demons and trauma over the years, often falling into bouts of alcoholism. The project gave him new meaning and purpose — until the bills began piling up and he struggled to keep the door open. The finances eventually became unsustainable, and he was forced to sell his house.

Silverman was discovered soon after his 2013 National Post interview by the new owner touring the property, hanging in the garage. A four-page suicide note blamed the government for ignoring the plight of men.

* * *

Trottier seems on the surface an unlikely successor to pick up Silverman’s torch, a legacy he will make good on with the opening of a second men’s shelter in Calgary this month – more than a decade after Silverman’s closed.j

At 41, his life is dotted with seemingly disconnected initiatives. Throughout his twenties and thirties, he founded a secular organization and argued before the Supreme Court against public prayers in Quebec government meetings. He commissioned atheist bus advertisements and ran as Green Party MPP in the Toronto Parkdale-High Park riding. He lost the race but was on the right side of the Supreme Court ruling.

“I tend to gravitate to those underexplored issues that have the combination of being really critically important and yet, mysteriously, nobody’s doing anything about it. If there’s any kind of common thread that ties together all the otherwise eclectic interests that I have, I think that’s it,” he said.

A decade ago, Trottier stumbled upon men’s issues. “It’s very obvious to me anyway that these are life and death issues. I mean suicide prevention, parental alienation, workplace fatalities, homelessness, drug addiction — these things that disproportionately affect boys and men. And nobody notices that. So that really intrigued me and also frustrated me.”

The media attention Trottier previously got evaporated when he began talking about struggling men. “Mostly the media doesn’t even think this is a legitimate thing. They’re just very used to covering gender issues in a certain way and they deem the conversation to be complete when you tackle it from one, I would say, ideological perspective. There’s not a lot of appetite for more well-rounded conversation, to see things from a more … comprehensive picture.”

[ The Family Shelter for Abused Men and Children relies on the help of graduate students in social work from nearby York University. ]

Matt, Peter, Malik and others have also touched the lives of the student social workers-volunteers from York University who play a vital role keeping the shelter running on its meagre funding. “It provided me inside information on the gaps that are in the system for men who are experiencing abuse and the lack of services that are not being provided,” said Thelcia Williams, a grad student volunteer.

“It also highlighted the stigmas and the sexist and gender biases that are incorporated within the field as well, where, you know, a lot of people don’t believe that there should be a shelter for men who are experiencing abuse,” she continued.

“A lot of people don’t believe men experience abuse, right? They just believe it’s women and children but, in fact, there is a demographic of men who are experiencing abuse. That needs to be addressed.”

Justin Anger, another social work grad student from York, said he also “didn’t realize how big of an issue domestic violence for men was until I came here.” Working firsthand with male survivors has changed the way Anger now looks at his coursework. “Even in some courses I’ve taken, whenever we speak about domestic violence, it’s (about) women,” he said. “It definitely shifted my perspective.”

Men as victims is an uncomfortable reality to acknowledge, even for men themselves.

“We don’t want to know about abused men,” Janice Fiamengo, a professor at the University of Ottawa and an outspoken supporter of men’s issues, wrote in an email to the National Post. “We turn our eyes away. And we definitely do not want to know about abusive women.”

Worse still, such men are often politically and socially homeless, with few advocates willing to take on their cause. “Male victims of abuse are caught between the progressive left, which doesn’t believe men can be victims because they have power, and the chivalric right, which tells men to man up and protect women,” Fiamengo added.

Matt is painfully familiar with this tension. “When you’re strong, when you look strong, people don’t even stop to ask you if you’re OK.”

[masterisabelle]

As native Gazans, the plight of my family weighs heavily on my heart. Trapped in our beloved city of Rafah, they sought refuge there after my grandmother's cancer diagnosis necessitated treatment unavailable elsewhere. However, the encroaching presence of a militant force has turned our once vibrant home into a battleground. Hindered by my grandmother's frail health, fleeing was not an option. Now, they are ensnared atop an apartment building overrun by militia, surrounded by danger and uncertainty. My aunts, both battling illness and injuries, along with my young cousins, are trapped in a nightmare. As a fellow Gazan and well-wishers, I implore you to extend your compassion and aid. Please, help us bring my family to safety amidst this turmoil.

Consider extending your support to my family during this hour of darkness.

I do not have money or any proper form to support you, but I can try to spread the message further

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[beardedmrbean]

TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday that the country will significantly reduce the number of new immigrants it allows into the country after acknowledging that his government failed to get the balance right coming out of the pandemic.

Trudeau's Liberal government was criticized for its plan to allow 500,000 new permanent residents into the country in each of the next two years. On Thursday, he said next year’s target will now be 395,000 new permanent residents and that the figure will drop to 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027.

“In the tumultuous times as we emerged from the pandemic, between addressing labor needs and maintaining population growth, we didn't get the balance right,” Trudeau said.

“Immigration is essential for Canada's future, but it must be controlled and it must be sustainable.”

Trudeau, who is facing calls from within his own party not to seek a fourth term, has endured mounting criticism over his immigration policies and the negative impact that population growth has had on housing affordability.

He said his government will reduce the number of immigrants Canada brings in over the next three years, and that this will freeze population growth over the next two years. Canada reached 41 million people in April. The population was 37.5 million in 2019.

Trudeau said Canada needs to stabilize its population growth to allow all levels of government to make necessary changes to health care, housing and social services so that it can accommodate more people in the future.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller said the lower immigration numbers will help with the country's housing shortage.

He also acknowledged the change in public opinion about immigration.

“That volume that we have put forward is of concern,” Miller said.

Miller said the government sees the pressures facing Canadians, and that it must must adapt its policies accordingly. He said government leaders have listened and will continue to protect the integrity of the immigration system and grow Canada's population responsibly.

“We are an open country, but not everyone can come to this country,” he said, noting that Canada will continue to welcome outsiders and that the government's immigration targets remain ambitious.

Trudeau's government has long touted Canada's immigration policy and how Canada is better than peer countries in welcoming newcomers and integrating them into the economy.

Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, accused Trudeau of destroying the national consensus on immigration.

“He has destroyed our immigration system through his own personal incompetence and destroyed 150 years of common sense consensus with the Liberals and Conservatives on that subject," Poilievre said.

“He cannot fix what he broke on immigration and housing or anything else because he is busy fighting his own caucus,” he added.

Poilievre was referring to calls by some lawmakers from Trudeau's own party to not run for a fourth term. Those calls represent one of the biggest tests of Trudeau's political career, but he said Thursday that he intends to stay on through the next election.

Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto, said the Trudeau government messed up badly on immigration.

"The government’s logic — to grow the economy and sustain an aging Canadian population by bringing in more young immigrants — was sound. But Ottawa has little control over meeting the housing, health, education, and other welfare needs of residents, whether they are citizens or immigrants,” Wiseman said.

"These are all provincial government responsibilities, and there was little cooperation or coordination between the two levels of government," he said.

A certain percentage of Canadians have always been xenophobic, but much less so than in some other countries, Wiseman said.

“Many Canadians have turned against the recent growing immigrant and temporary worker/student influx because of the growing housing, health, education, and other welfare challenges. Ottawa has read the polls and is responding according," he said.

[glambyridhimathukral]

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The Top 10 Jobs in Canada for 2024

Canada, with its picturesque landscapes, diverse culture, and robust economy, continues to attract individuals from around the world seeking new opportunities and a higher quality of life. As we step into 2024, the Canadian job market is brimming with exciting prospects across various industries. Whether you're a recent graduate, a seasoned professional, or an immigrant looking to build a career in the Great White North, here are the top 10 jobs in Canada that should be on your radar.

Software Developer: With the technology sector experiencing exponential growth, software developers are in high demand. From cutting-edge startups to established corporations, Canada's tech industry offers a plethora of opportunities for those with coding expertise.

Healthcare Professionals: The healthcare sector in Canada is perennially in need of skilled professionals, including nurses, doctors, and allied health workers. The aging population has led to a surge in demand for healthcare services, making it an excellent field for those looking to make a meaningful impact.

Construction Project Manager: As infrastructure projects continue to dot the Canadian landscape, the demand for construction project managers is on the rise. This role involves overseeing the planning, execution, and completion of construction projects, making it a key player in the nation's development.

Data Scientist: In an era driven by data, the role of a data scientist is crucial across various industries, including finance, healthcare, and e-commerce. Analyzing and interpreting large datasets, data scientists contribute valuable insights to guide decision-making processes.

Electrician: Skilled trades, such as electricians, are essential for maintaining and expanding Canada's infrastructure. From residential wiring to large-scale industrial projects, electricians play a pivotal role in ensuring the smooth functioning of the country's electrical systems.

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[hakodate-division]

"The little things in life are sometimes the most important."

Timeline

Age 0:

He is born to Martha and Ted Sr. Bridges on a farm in Toronto, Canada.

Age 12:

He experiences a growth spurt; he now towers over his own parents.

Age 14:

He starts high school.

His height, stature, and general demeanor make most people afraid of him.

Age 17:

He graduates high school.

He goes off to university to get his bachelor's in business and agriculture.

Age 20:

He graduates and obtains his bachelor's.

Before he can put it to use, he hears on the news about rumors that another world war is going to start.

He decides to do his duty and join the Canadian military, which makes his father proud, though his mother would rather he stay out of it.

Age 21:

For his service and dedication, he is promoted to Major.

The Third World War starts.

His mother begs him to get a desk job instead of going off to fight, but he refuses.

His ferocity in battle earns him infamy among the enemy troops.

He is nicknamed, "The Bear" as a result.

During a break in the fighting, his men take him to get a bear tattoo on his upper right arm.

Age 22:

During his tour, he is stationed in Okinawa, where he quickly gets turned around in.

Luckily, he meets a young marine biologist named Janet Shimizu who shows him around the town.

The two become good friends with each other, often meeting up when he is not busy.

Age 23:

The constant killing and fighting start to take its toll on Ted's mental health.

Luckily, the war soon ends.

He prepares to leave to head back home, but is informed by Janet that she is pregnant with his child, which shocks him.

In response, he requests to be honorable discharged from service, which is granted.

He then asks Janet to marry him, which she accepts.

Half a year later, their son, Aiden, is born.

Age 24:

He becomes a stay-at-home dad, watching Aiden, while his wife works.

He enters several strongman competitions to pass the time.

Age 25:

He learns about his wife's gift for "speaking" with animals, which amazes him.

He tries to reciprocate; he fails horribly, making his wife joke and tease him.

He wonders if his son has the same gift.

Age 28:

He sees his son speaking with animals and finds out that he inherited his wife's gift, much to her surprise and joy.

He feels a bit left out, but quickly gets over it.

Age 30:

He receives word from his father that his mom is in the hospital.

He heads back to Canada to see her. She passes away a few days later.

Age 31:

His dad passes a year later, following his wife.

Ted becomes depressed for a bit. His wife and child cheer him up.

Age 35:

The H-Era starts as the Party of Words amasses power. Ted automatically doesn't trust them.

A month later, Chuohku officials come to recruit Janet, finding her skill with animals to be of great use.

Though she doesn't trust them, Janet accepts the offer, so long as they agree to leave her family alone.

Ted doesn't approve of her working for them, but trusts her to take care of herself.

Age 36:

A workplace accident occurs, which kills everyone inside Janet's place of work, including her.

All Ted has left to remember her by is her golden locket, which he gifted her on their 1st Year Anniversary.

Though bitter and filled with hatred at the government, he foregoes getting revenge, knowing that that's not what his wife would want.

Instead, he and Aiden leave Okinawa and head for Hakodate, where he builds a chalet for the two of them there.

He changes up his appearance and explicitly warns Aiden not to show his "gift" off in public.

He becomes a lumberjack, cutting down trees for money and wrestling with bears to keep his strength up.

He becomes friends with the local Ainu tribe after he rescues a bear cub from some poachers.

Age 37:

He meets and becomes friends with Olympic snowboarder, Kokomi Morozov after he saves her from a bear after she had injured her leg.

She asks if she can rent a room in his chalet. Though he is skeptical, he eventually gives in.

Age 38:

Present.

At first, he refuses to join Kotan's team, not wanting to get involved with Chuohku or battle ever again.

However, he relents after ██████████████████.

He becomes the second member of the Hakodate division team, Kuma no ie, alongside Kotan Anchikar and Kokomi Morozov.

Schedule

12 a.m. - 7 a.m.: Asleep

7 a.m. - 8:30 a.m.: Freshens up and eats breakfast with Aiden and Kokomi

8:30 a.m. - 8:45 a.m.: Walks Aiden to the foot of the mountain before seeing him off to school

8:45 a.m. - 9 a.m.: Heads back home

9 a.m. - 10 a.m.: Morning workout

10 a.m. - 1 p.m.: Working as a lumberjack

1 p.m. - 2 p.m.: Late lunch

2 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.: Continues working as lumberjack

3:30 p.m. - 3:45 p.m.: Picks up Aiden at the foot of the mountain

3:45 p.m. - 4 p.m.: Walks back home with Aiden

4 p.m. - 5 p.m.: Wrestles with bears

5 p.m. - 6 p.m.: Freshens up

6 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.: Begins making dinner

7:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.: Eats dinner with Kokomi and Aiden

8:30 p.m. - 9 p.m.: Sits outside, watching the moon and stars

9 p.m. - 10 p.m.: Evening workout

10 p.m. - 11 p.m.: Free time

11 p.m. - 11:15 p.m.: Sets up a tent outside

11:15 p.m. - 12 a.m.: Asleep outside in tent

Character Hashtag

Regular Hashtags

#Bear among men

#A peaceful life in the mountains

#Everything for my son

Trauma Hashtags

#Scarred mentally and physically

#They took you from me

#How much more will I lose?

Other Info

Hobby: Wrestling Bears

Weakness: Refuses to get involved

Trauma: "The memories of the past won't leave me alone."

Twitter: @lumberjackbear

Drinks: Yes

Smokes: Yes

Special Skill: "I know how to create my own beer. It's a big hit with the people of Hakodate."

Intro Quote: "As long as I have my son and peace, I need nothing else."

Trauma Quote: "Janet... why? Why did this happen? ...It's their fault! Damn you, Chuohku!!"

Ending Quote: "Be forewarned: a man is most dangerous when he has nothing left to lose."

[westpointoptical2]

Enhancing Vision and Style: Exploring the Optical Stores in Brampton

In the vibrant city of Brampton, a flourishing community nestled within the Greater Toronto Area, residents and visitors alike have access to an array of amenities and services. Among these, optical stores play a crucial role in catering to the vision needs of the diverse population while also embracing the latest trends in eyewear fashion. This article delves into the world of optical stores in Brampton, highlighting their significance in eye health, the evolving trends in eyewear, and the role they play in shaping individual style.

A Clear Focus on Eye Health

The primary function of optical stores is to offer comprehensive eye care services to the community. These establishments house licensed optometrists who perform comprehensive eye exams to evaluate visual acuity and identify potential eye conditions. Brampton's optical stores are equipped with cutting-edge technology, enabling accurate diagnosis and treatment planning. Regular eye check-ups are crucial for maintaining optimal eye health, and these stores provide a convenient platform for residents to access professional eye care services.

A Wide Spectrum of Eyewear

One of the most striking features of optical stores in Brampton is the vast array of eyewear options they offer. From prescription glasses to contact lenses and sunglasses, these stores provide a diverse selection to suit every individual's needs. Whether it's for nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, or simply fashion, residents can choose from an extensive collection of frames and lenses.

Fashion Meets Functionality: Eyewear Trends

Eyewear has evolved beyond its functional purpose to become a fashion statement. The optical stores in Brampton have embraced this trend wholeheartedly, curating collections that combine style and functionality. These stores collaborate with well-known eyewear brands to offer the latest designs and materials. Frames now come in various shapes, sizes, and materials, catering to different face shapes and personal preferences. Trendy eyewear not only enhances visual acuity but also boosts confidence and personal style.

Personalized Shopping Experience

The optical stores in Brampton excel in providing a personalized shopping experience. Trained opticians and staff members are on hand to guide customers through the selection process, considering factors such as face shape, skin tone, and lifestyle. This personalized approach ensures that customers find eyewear that not only corrects their vision but also complements their individuality.

Technological Advancements

Advancements in technology have revolutionized the eyewear industry. Optical stores in Brampton leverage these technological innovations to offer advanced services like digital retinal imaging, which allows optometrists to capture high-resolution images of the retina. This aids in the early detection of various eye conditions such as glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, and macular degeneration. Additionally, state-of-the-art equipment ensures accurate prescription measurements, resulting in lenses that precisely address individual visual needs.

Community Engagement and Outreach

Beyond providing eye care services, optical stores in Brampton actively engage with the community through various initiatives. They conduct educational workshops, seminars, and eye health awareness campaigns to spread knowledge about the importance of regular eye check-ups and maintaining healthy vision practices. These efforts not only contribute to the overall well-being of the community but also foster a sense of trust between residents and the optical stores.

Supporting Local Economy

The presence of numerous optical stores in Brampton also plays a role in boosting the local economy. These establishments create employment opportunities for optometrists, opticians, sales staff, and administrative personnel. Additionally, their collaboration with eyewear brands and suppliers contributes to the economic ecosystem of the region.

Conclusion

Optical stores in Brampton are more than just places to get prescription glasses; they are essential hubs that combine eye health, fashion, technology, and community engagement. By providing cutting-edge eye care services, offering a diverse range of eyewear options, and embracing the latest trends, these establishments enhance the quality of life for residents. Through their dedication to both functionality and style, optical stores in Brampton serve as a clear reflection of the city's commitment to holistic well-being. So, whether you're in need of new glasses, want to explore the latest eyewear trends, or simply wish to maintain optimal eye health, Brampton's optical stores are ready to cater to your every need.

[scrapcargta]

The Importance of Properly Disposing of End-of-Life Vehicles

As the automotive landscape evolves and vehicles reach the end of their operational lives, the responsibility of disposing of these end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) becomes increasingly important. Proper disposal of ELVs goes beyond simply clearing out old cars; it's a vital step in safeguarding the environment, reducing hazards, and promoting sustainability. In this blog, we will explore the significance of properly disposing of end-of-life vehicles and the benefits it brings to both the environment and society.

Environmental Impact of Improper Disposal

Pollution Prevention: Neglecting proper disposal methods for ELVs can lead to hazardous chemicals and fluids, such as oil, coolant, and battery acids, seeping into the soil and waterways, causing pollution and harming ecosystems.

Air Quality: When ELVs are abandoned or dismantled haphazardly, they may release harmful substances into the air, contributing to air pollution and posing health risks to both humans and wildlife.

Land Contamination: Improper disposal of ELVs can lead to soil contamination, making land unsuitable for future use and affecting agriculture, urban development, and natural habitats.

Benefits of Proper ELV Disposal

Resource Recovery: ELVs are a valuable source of recyclable materials, such as metals and plastics. Proper disposal and recycling ensure that these resources are recovered, reducing the need for new raw materials and minimizing the associated environmental impact of resource extraction.

Energy Savings: Recycling materials from ELVs requires less energy than producing new materials from scratch. This leads to reduced energy consumption and the associated carbon emissions.

Economic Opportunities: Properly managed ELV disposal creates economic opportunities through recycling and repurposing. It supports industries that specialize in processing and recycling automotive components, contributing to job creation and economic growth.

Regulatory Compliance: Many regions have regulations in place for ELV disposal to prevent environmental harm. Proper disposal ensures compliance with these regulations, preventing legal repercussions.

Promoting Sustainability: By participating in proper ELV disposal practices, individuals and businesses contribute to a more sustainable future, emphasizing responsible resource management and reducing waste.

Steps for Proper ELV Disposal

Choose Reputable Disposal Services: Opt for certified scrap car removal services that adhere to environmental regulations and ethical practices.

Fluid Drainage and Removal: Ensure that all fluids, including oil, coolant, and gasoline, are properly drained and disposed of according to environmental guidelines.

Component Separation: Dismantle the vehicle to separate recyclable materials from non-recyclable ones.

Recycling and Repurposing: Collaborate with certified recycling facilities that specialize in processing ELVs to recover valuable materials and safely dispose of hazardous components.

The proper disposal of end-of-life vehicles is not only a matter of responsibility but also a crucial step in minimizing the environmental impact of the automotive industry. By adhering to regulated disposal practices, we can prevent pollution, conserve resources, and contribute to a more sustainable future. As consumers, businesses, and communities, it is our collective duty to ensure that end-of-life vehicles are managed with care and consideration for both our environment and the well-being of future generations.

Cash For Scrap Car GTA plays a pivotal role in promoting the importance of properly disposing of end-of-life vehicles in Toronto. Our dedicated service not only offers swift and reliable scrap car removal but also emphasizes responsible environmental practices. Our scrap car removal Toronto team understands the significance of ensuring that ELVs are handled with care to prevent pollution and promote resource recovery. By choosing Cash For Scrap Car GTA for your scrap car removal needs, you contribute to the proper disposal of vehicles while receiving fair compensation. Join us in safeguarding Toronto's environment through conscientious scrap car removal services.

To get more details, land on https://cashforscrapcargta.ca/

[allthecanadianpolitics]

A forthcoming law that will force the closure of supervised drug consumption sites near schools and daycares will also affect sites in Toronto homeless shelters, the province confirmed to CBC News. Last week, Premier Doug Ford's government said it would ban supervised consumption sites — which allow people to inject, snort or otherwise take street drugs under supervision to reduce the risk of overdose — within 200 metres of schools and child-care centres. In total, 10 facilities across the province will be forced to stop providing these services by the end of March 2025. Five of them are in Toronto. While no homeless shelters were included on the list, a spokesperson for the provincial health ministry told CBC Toronto that sites within homeless shelters will also have to close.

Continue Reading

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[queen-street-news]

New Post has been published on https://bloornews.com/blog-toronto/bc-company-granted-permission-by-health-canada-to-produce-and-sell-cocaine/

BC Company Granted Permission by Health Canada to Produce and Sell Cocaine

A British Columbia cannabis company says it has received approval from Health Canada to produce, sell, and distribute cocaine.

A woman (L) prepares to inject herself with an unknown substance as a man sits in a wheelchair outside Insite, the supervised consumption site, in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, B.C., on Feb. 21, 2017. (The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

In a news release on Feb. 22, Adastra Holdings Ltd., which produces marijuana for adult use and medical sales out of headquarters in Langley, B.C., announced that it was granted a Health Canada amendment to its Controlled Drug and Substances Dealer’s License on Feb. 17.

The company can now “legally possess, produce, sell and distribute” cocaine, in addition to previously being allowed to deal up to 1,000 grams of psilocybin and psilocin, otherwise known as magic mushrooms.

The news release indicates Adastra can “interact with up to 250 grams” of cocaine, and can import coca leaves to manufacture and synthesize the hard drug in Canada.

Adastra’s Health Canada approval follows a federal government approval for B.C. that, as of Jan. 31, granted the province a temporary three-year exemption to allow adults to legally possess up to 2.5 grams of any combination of opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA, heroin, fentanyl, and/or morphine for personal use, at no risk of being arrested, charged, or having their drugs seized.

The CEO of Adastra, Michael Forbes, is a pharmacist who formerly worked in multiple methadone pharmacies, according to the company, and is a proponent of “harm reduction,” which is a philosophy that promotes reducing negative consequences associated with drug use, but without requiring abstinence from drugs or addiction treatment.

Adastra’s release says he previously “piloted a needle exchange program” at the direction of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in 2010. Forbes is the creator of the Forbes Group, which has multiple companies ranging from moving storage, cannabis, health care services, and advertising.

The federal government has been supportive of the B.C. decriminalization plan, with federal Mental Health and Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett saying on Jan. 30 that it will reduce “the stigma, the fear, and shame that keep people who use drugs silent about their use, or using alone.”

Conservatives have been critical of the plan, with leader Pierre Poilievre saying B.C.’s approach to the issue has been an “abject failure.”

“Decriminalization has been in place in B.C. now since about 2017 in reality,” he said on Feb. 1. “The results are in. The debate is over. It has been a disaster, an absolute abject failure.”

By Marnie Cathcart

[naankabob]

Delight in Nutritious Healthy Catering Toronto with Naan Kabob

At Naan Kabob, we believe that food must not only taste good but also nourish your body and soul. 

 Here in the heart of Toronto, we specialize in authentic Afghan cuisine. We prepare a unique blend of flavors and ingredients that cater to health-conscious diners. Whether you plan it for a corporate lunch, family gathering, or something special, catering in Toronto promises your guests to enjoy great tastes and wholesome dishes that create lasting impressions.

Naan Kabob, where flavor meets wellness

Naan Kabob is not a restaurant but an experience of food based on quality, flavor, and health. In crafting our menu, we’ve combined delightful dishes that not only please the palate but also nurture the body. We realize that every guest has different dietary preferences, so we have tried to accommodate these while delivering meals that all can enjoy.

Why Choose Naan Kabob for Your Catering Needs? 

When it comes to healthy catering Toronto, there are numerous reasons to choose Naan Kabob: 

 1. Fresh Ingredients: We prioritize sourcing our ingredients from local suppliers to ensure maximum freshness and flavor. Our commitment to quality means that every dish is made with care, using only the best ingredients available. 

 2. Flavorful Options: We have a wide variety of dishes, all of which showcase some of Afghanistan's flavors, from its vibrant best kabob recipes to fresh salads made with the most healthy ingredients. Meals are worth celebrating, and it will be a perfect fit for any function. 

 3. Customizable Menus: Every occasion is special, and we understand that dietary needs vary for each individual. We ensure that whatever your guests' preferences are—whether they are vegetarians, vegans, or have specific allergy concerns—we will tailor a menu to suit them. 

 4. Portion Control: Through our catering services, we can thoughtfully combine accurately fitting portions with an awareness of health so you can enjoy our scores without compromising your diet.

To Visit us-https://naankabob.ca/ 

 691 Yonge Street Toronto, 

ONM42B2 

Phone number-4169726623 

 Email us -Info@naankabob.ca