Is Bell's Plan to Monitor and Profile Millions of Canadians Legal?

Last week, Bell announced plans to implement new consumer monitoring and profiling practices that would greatly expand how it uses the information it collects on millions of subscribers. The planned scope of Bell's profiling is unprecedented in Canada, reflecting the power of a vertically-integrated media giant to effortlessly track their customers' location, media habits, search activity, website interests, and application usage.

The Bell plan generated a significant public backlash, with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada launching an immediate investigation. Yet the company steadfastly defended its plans, saying that users are supportive of the new policy and maintaining that it is fully compliant with Canadian law.

Romney: 'Some Gays Are Actually Having Children. It's Not Right on Paper. It's Not Right in Fact.'

We've witnessed many Mitt Romneys, but the one unearthed by the Boston Globe's Murray Waas yesterday is perhaps the most vicious and cruel: a zealot who, as Massachusetts governor, became hellbent on stigmatizing the children of gay and lesbian parents, labeling these kids as outcasts and causing them to suffer hardship throughout their lives.

Waas reveals how, after gays and lesbians in Massachusetts won the right to marry in 2003, Governor Romney wouldn't allow the Registry of Vital Records and Statistics to revise birth certificate forms for babies born to same-sex couples. The plan was to have the box for "father," for example, relabeled "father or second parent." But according to documents obtained by Waas, Romney rejected the plan, demanding the agency continue using old forms. Romney then demanded hospitals get permission from his office each time a child was born to a same sex-couple in order to cross out, with a pen, the label "father" or "mother," and write-in, with a pen, "second parent." (Romney also required gay male parents to get a court order before any birth certificate was issued.)

Sikhs have been living in fear of hate crimes since 9/11

As a Sikh Canadian, I had a dreaded feeling that one day a Sikh gurdwara somewhere in North America would be terrorized by bloodshed because of hate, fear and ignorance. And as we hear from the media coverage of the Wisconsin shooting, I’m not the only North American Sikh who felt this way.

Sikhs all over Canada and the United States have been living in fear since 9/11. Because we have brown skin and some Sikh men look like our Muslim brethren with their turbans and beards, hate crimes in our community persist despite our continued advocacy to raise awareness about the racism that we – and other communities, like Muslims – have experienced post-9/11.

Stop stalling release of donor information for political insiders’ school, Carleton told

OTTAWA — Carleton University has suffered a setback in its fight to withhold information about a $15-million donation to a new school for political insiders.

The university’s request for a nine-week extension was rejected by the information and privacy commissioner of Ontario, which ordered the university to supply an explanation by Tuesday.

The ruling is the latest shot in a year-long battle over a freedom-of-information request it received from The Canadian Press.