Canada in brief: Sept. 16, 2009

Political ad campaigns invade TV screens

ST. CATHERINES, Ont. (CUP) – While Parliament resumed this week, federal political parties didn’t hold back from releasing advertising campaigns prior to its start, raising speculation of an election on the horizon.

Michael Ignatieff speaks little of his competitor, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but more about his party’s general wishes for the nation, driving home the point of seeing Canada in a “global perspective” and their high hopes for Canada to be a stronger player on this world stage, by reaching out “to India and China to build the economy of tomorrow.”

-Amanda Roth, The Brock Press

Journalist’s wife pleas to PM to help free husband

Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari has been arrested in Iran during a state crackdown in June 2009. His wife, Paolo Gourley, has pleaded to Prime Minister Stephen Harper to help free him and ask for the support of U.S. President Barack Obama to do so in their meeting on Sept. 16.
Newsweek magazine, Bahari’s employer, has also sent an e-mail to the prime minister supporting Gourley’s call for aid.

-Compiled by Linda Givetash

Slumping economy leads to rise in grad enrolment

WINNIPEG (CUP) – The current economic climate has led to higher enrolment in graduate-level university programs across the country.

Graduate enrolment is up 5.5 per cent from the 2008-09 year at the University of Manitoba, according to the school’s office of institutional analysis.

David Andolfatto, a specialist in economics and the business cycle at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., said in an interview that this trend is something that usually occurs when the market is experiencing a difficult change.

-Morgan Modjeski, The Manitoban

U of O student falls to death

Orientation Week at the University of Ottawa took a somber turn on Saturday Sept. 12 when a student plunged from the 15th floor window of his residence building, leaving nearby students and staff disturbed by the image of his fall.

In the early hours of the morning he was pronounced dead, and the uncertain circumstances of his fall left officials unable to comment on the situation. Several students returned on Sunday and left flowers outside of the residence in honor of the lost life.

-Compiled by Andrea Millet