Canada, Kyoto, and False Accusations

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
type="html">

To the editor,

?I would like to take this opportunity to respond to the allegation, posted by The Mark on Jan. 9 ("Environment and Economics: A False Dichotomy"), that members of the Canadian delegation were trying to “cajole” other countries to pull out of the Kyoto Protocol during the international climate-change talks in Durban, South Africa.

As Canada’s chief negotiator and ambassador for climate change, and a member of the Canadian delegation to the 17th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), let me emphasize that no members of our delegation made any attempt to convince any country to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. Canada has always made it clear that, while we do not agree that the Kyoto Protocol represents the path forward, we would not stand in the way of any country that supports it.

?In Durban, we actively supported the efforts to launch a new round of negotiations to reach a new single, comprehensive, and effective agreement that would include all major emitters. It is our hope that these negotiations will be concluded by 2015.

I would also note that the confirmation by Canada in Durban that we will spend $1.2 billion between 2010 and 2012 to support climate-change mitigation and adaptation efforts by developing countries was very well received.? Canada will continue to work constructively with its international partners to achieve a fair, comprehensive, and effective post-2012 agreement that moves us beyond Kyoto and includes legally binding commitments from all major emitters. Furthermore, we will be fully transparent in reporting on our greenhouse-gas emissions and the efforts made by the federal and provincial governments to meet our 17-per-cent emissions-reduction target by 2020.

?Sincerely,

?Guy Saint-Jacques

Canada’s Chief Negotiator and Ambassador for Climate Change

The Difference a Package Can Make

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
type="html">

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, approximately 925 million people in the world are underfed. Furthermore, UNICEF reports that 22 per cent of children are underweight. In countries where poverty and food insecurity are widespread, daily assistance is required to meet basic needs. Something as simple as milk, which is vital to a child’s development, has trouble reaching communities where poor infrastructure makes transportation and refrigeration a challenge. It is becoming increasingly evident that food processing and packaging innovation are critical to providing safe and nutritious food to communities in need.

One solution, an innovation called aseptic technology, which Tetra Pak introduced widely, allows for traditionally perishable food products, even sensitive ones like milk, to be shelf-stable without the need for refrigeration, chemicals, or preservatives. Tetra Pak’s aseptic processing and packaging are currently being used to help develop and support school milk programs in over 50 countries across different continents, delivering safe, nutritious foods to schools in need. Such programs have proven to have political, economic, and social benefits. In Thailand, for example, over a period of 15 years, the school milk program increased milk drinking per capita by 10 times, improved health conditions for children, created approximately 250,000 new jobs, and reduced reliance on imports of milk.

Similarly, through the Zambia Milk for Schools program launched in June 2011, 15,000 students each receive 250ml of milk two to three times a day in aseptic cartons. The program – which Tetra Pak launched in partnership with the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency, World Food Programme Zambia, Parmalat Zambia, the Zambian government, and local stakeholders – provides a market for the smallholder dairy sector, diversifies the agricultural sector, and creates demand for high-quality, locally produced milk. It is expected that this project will not only increase per-capita milk consumption and economic growth along the value chain, but will also increase school attendance and improve children’s health and academic results. This will lead to general productivity improvements for the entire country.

---

Related: Stretching Foreign Aid Dollars

---

Something as simple as aseptic carton packaging has revolutionized how consumers drink milk. Aseptic technology, which the Institute of Food Technologists has described as the greatest food-science innovation of the 20th century, continues to be beneficial for people from all geographies, economic backgrounds, and social groups. The cartons are lightweight and easy to produce, transport, and distribute, their value lasts longer, and they help make food safe and available everywhere. Ready-to-drink packaged products also eliminate concerns about storage, hygiene, and water quality.

Aseptic technology ensures that food and packaging materials are free from harmful bacteria. During processing, products like milk are sterilized using ultra-high temperature systems. The product is then packaged in aseptic cartons, also known as shelf-stable cartons, which ensure that air, light, and harmful bacteria are kept out.

Whether you are in Zambia, Thailand, or Canada, food safety and nutrition are important concerns. Technology and packaging innovation continue to play a pivotal role in creating packaging systems that improve food safety around the world.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

Leaping Forward With One Foot in the Past

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
type="html">

When you think of Facebook, the last image that comes to mind is newsprint. When you try to explain Twitter to someone, the feathered quill isn’t the first thing you reference. When you answer an iPhone, you are not at all reminded of picking up the handset of a big rotary phone. Yet these are the icons that are used to represent such cutting-edge platforms and devices. (Facebook’s “news-feed” icon depicts a newspaper, Twitter’s newly redesigned “publish” icon features a feathered quill, and iPhone’s phone app is illustrated with an old-fashioned handset.) The use of this old-fashioned imagery is puzzling. Logic would dictate that the creators of these cutting-edge platforms would try to distance the new from the old, but that’s clearly not the case.

This phenomenon of reaching into the past to describe the future goes beyond the iconography of new media – it’s also part of our lexicon. Marshall McLuhan, in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, briefly comments on this trend. He says that terms such as “wireless” and “horseless carriage” illustrate how innovations must “pass through a primary phase in which the new effect is secured by the old method amplified or modified by some new feature.” In more modern times, a prime example is the cordless phone, a term that David Foster Wallace pokes fun at in Infinite Jest through a character that invents a gag joke called the “phoneless cord.” The cordless phone, the “newspaper” Facebook feed, the “quill” Twitter button, and the horseless carriage are all instances of this trend. However, neither McLuhan nor Wallace offer explanations as to why this happens.

I think we can learn a lot about the nature of innovation and communication by dissecting these symbols and phrases. Is this imagery that leans on the past to communicate something new just lazy graphic design, or is there something deeper going on here? Why are the most nuanced and advanced media platforms falling victim to iconographic regression?

---

Related: In the Facebook Era, It's Friends Forever

---

In his book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins defines a meme as a “unit of cultural transmission.” A meme, like a gene, is inherently a replicating machine. But while genes transmit biological information, memes transmit cultural information (in the form of tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, fashion – anything that propagates by leaping from brain to brain). This conception of memes optimizes the idea of media going “viral” as it spreads through the popular culture. A meme is the idea or symbol that catches on. It represents the human capacity to make a lasting imprint on the world through invention. A successful meme, like a successful gene, is one that is perpetuated.

Dawkins’ conception of memes is fascinating on a purely communicative level, as an explanation of how popular ideas spread. One of the keys to successful transmission, according to Dawkins, is copying fidelity (for, “the more faithful the copy, the more will remain of the initial pattern after several rounds of copying”). In a digital era where the competition for mind space is fiercer than ever, and the ability to replicate content in identical forms is ubiquitous, Dawkins’ formula for creating successful memes proves truer by the Tweet.

Dawkins also argued that a fundamental notion of evolution is that the new is built upon the old. All our genes are based on what came before them. They are mixed and mutated and changed, but they are fundamentally derivative. When we apply this concept to the idea of memes, we start to get a sense of what it means to innovate.

There are two ways to look at creativity and innovation. One is the method put forth by Terry Gilliam, who says that ideas just appear: “I’d go to bed, and I’d leave my shoes by the bed. And I’d wake up and there’d be these little elves that would come in and put ideas in my shoes, and I’d just use them.”

The other way to look at creativity is to assume that innovation and creativity come from looking at the world and making new connections. According to Steve Jobs:

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.

Of the two, Jobs’ perspective on creativity is much more aligned with Dawkins’ notion of memes. Creativity is the process of connecting circumstance and experience to spark a new meme that leaps from one brain to another. The key to a meme’s success is its ability to spread – to be communicated.

---

Related: Technology Vs. the Brain

---

With this in mind, our old-fashioned icons make more sense. Facebook, Twitter, and the iPhone are all new memes. These memes represent something different than what came before, and so need to lean on the vocabulary and symbolism of the past in order to communicate their new functions. The historical references make it easier for these memes to leap from one brain to another: Similar to how a virus integrates itself with the existing DNA of a cell, these new memes integrate themselves with the iconography of memes that came before them.

In order to design something new, we need to look to our past so that we can understand where we come from and authentically acknowledge the fundamental traits and behaviours that we want to harness in our “next big thing.” More importantly, though, we mustn’t fall victim to the hype. We must recognize that what appears to be game-changing or revolutionary is anything but. Our memes are built on the past, and on the fundamental characteristics of human psychology. Twitter is not a new human experience – it is just a new tool that allows us to expand on, and continue to do, what we have always done: communicate.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

The Modern World and Scandalous Ideas Lost

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
type="html">

Like the paunchy couch potato of a certain age who is happy in the conviction he has the makings of an outstanding baseball manager, more than a few academics share the secret conviction that they contain a bestseller somewhere within, if only time and circumstances allowed. But the feat is not easily managed – even by literary critics, who study what it is that makes writing good. One who has mastered the trick, however, is the distinguished Renaissance scholar Stephen Greenblatt, whose latest book, The Swerve, accomplishes the shift from an academic audience to a less specialized – and more lucrative - readership gracefully enough to make the whole thing look ridiculously easy. The book is a page-turner of epic scope, ranging from Greek philosophers of the fifth century BC to the author’s own youth, stuffed with vivid characters and dramatic discoveries. And, if anyone doubts that Greenblatt has done his homework, there is a 27-page “selected” bibliography to back up his story.

The Swerve’s subtitle, “How the World Became Modern,” is a somewhat misleading description, promising at once too much and too little. The book is an extended associative ramble, here describing the ancient Roman book trade, there analyzing the ruthless politics of the Renaissance Vatican curia, now recounting in gruesome detail the burning of Giordano Bruno during the Inquisition, and later discussing Michel de Montaigne’s reflections on his “favorite subjects: sex and death” (247). What pull this all together are Greenblatt’s two foci: first, the ambitious and cunning humanist scholar Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini and his 1417 discovery of a copy of pre-Christian philosopher Lucretius’s forgotten epic poem, “On the Nature of Things”; and second, the extended underground network of influence that the scandalous ideas elaborated in this poem exerted on thinkers and writers from the 15th century on.

---

Related: The Book as Artifact

---

What made “On the Nature of Things” such an outrageous and troubling threat was the radical alternative it offered to the vision of the world sanctioned by the Catholic Church, a view enforced, when necessary, by appalling violence. Lucretius was a philosophical follower of Epicurus, who held that our world is thoroughly materialistic, the result of the perpetual interaction of atomic particles. His views allowed room for neither an immortal soul nor a spiritual afterlife. For the Epicureans, this was an immensely liberating perspective: Freed from a superstitious and oppressive fear of the afterlife, human beings were able to cultivate with pleasure and dignity the good things of this world. Such an interpretation was a far more serious threat to the moral authority of the Catholic Church than any amount of mere sinfulness, since it deprived religion of its very purpose. Bracciolini’s fortuitous discovery thus represented a very great threat to the established order.

It is well to be reminded, at a point in history when it is possible to carry virtually the whole of western literary history in one’s pocket, of the slender thread by which our intellectual heritage once hung. All written texts have a limited lifespan, and before the invention of the printing press their survival depended on the constant copying of manuscripts. Neglect was as effective as active destruction, and if the chain was broken, the loss was irrecoverable. Furthermore, after their hitherto obscure cult had become the official religion of the Roman Empire, Christians had little desire to perpetuate the decaying traces of rival intellectual traditions now properly consigned to oblivion.

Among the most reviled of pagan texts for the Christians were those of the Epicureans. The atomists did not simply set up one conception of the afterlife against another, contesting their opponents’ mysterious doctrines with their own equally mysterious claims. Rather, they scoffed at the notion that the universe was organized for the sake of humanity and that a god should self-sacrifice to provide this particular animal with everlasting life. For the early Christian fathers, writes Greenblatt, the immortality of the soul was indispensible – deny it, and “the whole fabric of Christian morality unravels” (101). According to them, anyone believing such a doctrine must be not simply misguided, but quite obviously insane. In fact, the only biographical reference to Lucretius, by St. Jerome, describes him as a man who was “driven mad by a love-philtre and, having composed between bouts of insanity several books (which Cicero afterwards corrected), committed suicide at the age of 44.” Needless to say, there was little to encourage either the preservation or study of “On the Nature of Things,” and things remained much the same for the next thousand or so years.

Enter Bracciolini – humanist scholar, wily bureaucrat, and book-finder extraordinaire. He had risen rapidly in the duplicitous and cynical inner world of the Vatican, finally landing the coveted position of personal secretary to Pope John XXIII. When his master was deposed and imprisoned, however, Bracciolini fell back on his true love, the pursuit of forgotten manuscripts.

---

Related: A Turning Point for the Publishing Industry

---

Greenblatt does an excellent job of conjuring up the spirit in which the humanists pursued their quarry. Spending days in a cold library poring over barely legible script may not seem like a very glamorous activity, but the humanists, writes Greenblatt, “managed to invest this search with a new, almost erotic urgency and pleasure, superior to all other treasure seeking” (119). The seekers approached their task with an enthusiasm that touched on the religious – they were, after all, resurrecting a glorious portion of the life of humanity long thought dead. So when Bracciolini, during a visit to a monastic library in southern Germany in January 1417, came across a document no longer believed to exist, it was a pregnant moment. But he couldn’t have known all that would emerge from that pregnancy when he quickly arranged for a copy to be made of the manuscript.

According to Greenblatt, Lucretius’s poem played a profound, if occult, role in shaping Renaissance and early modern thought. While few were prepared to express any public support for the scandalous philosophy it contained, Greenblatt contends that its dangerous ideas “percolated and surfaced wherever the Renaissance imagination was at its most alive and intense” (220).

Greenblatt’s book is lively and informative, but it is also timely. At a grim point in history when religious extremisms of many stripes are again on the march, determined to enforce an intolerant dogmatism that lusts to persecute any hint of enlightened skepticism, The Swerve serves as a reminder that it is possible to accept the reality of mortality and still value life, to recognize the transience of the world and still admire its beauty and grandeur. The topic of Greenblatt’s story may be the fate of a book, but its real theme is death, and its message is that a dignified and fully human life is still possible if we accept with gratitude our limited time on this earth.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Unveiling a Discriminatory Policy

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
type="html">

There is a lot more to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's policy prohibiting Muslim women from covering their faces during citizenship ceremonies than meets the eye. Since Dec. 12, 2011, when Kenney publicly announced the new policy, a heated debate has emerged in Canada focusing on a variety of pertinent questions: Does the policy violate the right to religious freedom enshrined in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Does it promote or deny women’s rights more generally? Does it further marginalize Muslims? Is the policy even necessary? And, finally, does it actually achieve what it aims to? Though all of these questions are important, several key criticisms of the veil policy deserve further attention.

For one thing, the government’s veil policy ignores the complexity of the notion of “choice” with respect to the circumstances under which immigrants and refugees migrate to Canada. Clearly, many groups of immigrants and refugees do not migrate to Canada by choice. Rather, they are forced out of their countries of origin by threats to their safety and lives. In fact, the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees states:

A refugee is a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.

While most refugees do not choose their country of resettlement, issues of gender inequality within many refugee and migrant families mean that women, in particular, often have no say on where they will migrate. It is therefore unreasonable and counterproductive for the Canadian government to suggest that women who do not feel comfortable taking their veils off should not migrate to Canada. If countering the oppression of women is what the government is after, then requiring women to remove their veils during citizenship ceremonies is self-defeating.

---

Related: A Battle on Two Fronts

---

The veil policy also demonstrates the government’s inexcusable ignorance about the diversity of Muslims. In Canada alone, there are Muslims from many different sects and countries, and they have varying belief systems with regard to women's dress. Some Muslim women have the right to choose their dress based on their belief systems. Others are forced to cover themselves to varying degrees by men in their families and communities. For the latter, Kenney’s policy creates a no-win situation: Men in their families/communities force them to wear the veils, but, according to Kenney’s policy, if they do, they are prevented from becoming Canadian citizens. This makes it even more difficult for them to overcome their oppression because, if they cannot become Canadian citizens, they are denied the complete set of rights, legal protections, access to services, and social support provided by such status. This marginalizes them even further, prevents them from being able to live freely in our country, and potentially threatens their safety.

This kind of discriminatory practice in Canada – sanctioned by, and, in fact, originating from, the government – has real and worrisome implications. Evidence from around the globe indicates that immigrants and refugees who experience racial, ethnic, and religious discrimination are at increased risk of developing mental-health issues and illness. My own extensive research [in collaboration with colleagues] shows that this is especially true for immigrants and refugees who experience systemic discrimination at the hands of the Canadian government. This risk is magnified for those who have already been persecuted by governments in their countries of origin, as they may be re-traumatized by the experience of discrimination in Canada – especially when they reasonably assume that they have fled danger to settle in a safe new home. It is not difficult to understand how the experience of being forced to remove a veil might impact a Muslim woman seeking citizenship in Canada. We know that Muslims face distinct risks in the context of the increasing Islamophobia around the globe since 9/11.

---

Related: What 9/11 Didn't Change

---

The framework for Canada’s first mental-health strategy, released by the Mental Health Commission of Canada in 2009, recognizes the damaging impact that racism and discrimination have on mental health, and prioritizes addressing these issues to improve mental health in Canada. One of the strategy’s main goals is to establish a “mental health system [that] responds to the diverse needs of all people in Canada,” taking into consideration things like “ethno-cultural background, experience of racism, and migration history; stage of life; language spoken; sex, gender, and sexual orientation; geographical location; different abilities; socio-economic status; and spiritual or religious beliefs.”

In the context of the growing diversity in Canada, our federal government is not only ignoring the global evidence of the (physical and mental) health risks related to the types of systemic discrimination that it is supporting, but is also disregarding the goals, based on extensive research and stakeholder consultation, of a national organization that it funds.

Kenney’s policy is both unacceptable and shameful for a country whose inclusive identity has been globally admired, envied, and aspired to for many years. Rather than acting on its own ideology at the expense of others, the Canadian government should continue to be a global leader in inclusive policy and governance, based not only on the human-rights principles at the core of our identity, but also on the global evidence that reveals the risks associated with exclusion.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

In the Facebook Era, It's Friends Forever

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
type="html">

Thanks to social-networking sites like Facebook, many of the people that otherwise would have drifted out of our lives can now be linked to us indefinitely online, keeping track of us in the virtual world even if we no longer have any contact with them in “real life.” It's a peculiar situation, evidenced by the introduction of terms like “Facebook Creeping” and FOMO (fear of missing out) into our vocabularies. But what are the wider implications of these changes?

Social networks enable us to cheat the natural order of things. In our ability to pore over photo albums and analyze status updates, we gain access to information that's generally reserved for a close friend without actually having to be one. We look at others’ profiles because we are nosy, and because we want to make sure we're not missing out – that we're on par with our colleagues and friends. Furthermore, social networks create unnatural digital bonds that keep us entangled in unnecessary relationships. Most of the time it's harmless, but in certain cases (ex-boyfriends, toxic friendships) these relationships could be unhealthy. A 2011 study identified a condition called “Facebook Envy” arguing that reading what others share on social networks might actually have a negative impact on mood. The existence of "Facebook Depression" is also being debated among health-care professionals.

---

Related: The Evolution of the Web Persona

---

I believe it is the lack of natural social decay that is driving some of these behaviours. After all, while some relationships end explosively, the majority decay naturally in a slow and gradual process. We drift apart. We lose contact. Far from replicating this natural passive disconnection online, we are forced to deliberately hit the “Unfriend” button, severing the connection in a swift and decisive manner. "Unfriending" is seen as a digitally aggressive act, and can often carry social implications in the real world. (An extreme example: In Iowa, a woman was arrested for burning down the house of someone who had unfriended her on Facebook.) It's much easier to simply stay connected to these people online, even if we never communicate with them. Thus, we continue to be "Facebook friends" with people who aren't really our friends.

Is it really necessary to stay connected to such people? Of course not, but many of us do so because it’s easier than having to look your colleague in the eye and explain why you haven't accepted his or her friend request yet. We'd rather avoid that awkward moment, so we continue to broadcast pieces of our digital selves to an ever-growing circle that includes bosses, acquaintances, and distant relatives. The result? A need for better and more comprehensive privacy policies that take into account these social complexities.

These policies, however, are often in opposition to the corporate bottom line. Consider, for instance, Facebook's never-ending push for users to publicly share more information about themselves. It is in Facebook's best interest for us to continue to “friend” as many people as possible, as it provides the company with more data that it can extract and sell. As a result, Facebook is becoming a broader web that documents the connections of the people we have encountered in our lives, rather than a representation of our closest friends. For Mark Zuckerberg, social decay shouldn't exist at all.

---

Related: Has Facebook Gone Too Far?

---

This, however, is not the only option.

One company that is introducing an alternative approach is Path, a mobile social network that uses the principles of Dunbar's Number in an effort to manage social decay. Dunbar’s Number (commonly cited as 150) comes from the work of British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, and represents the “cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships.”

Once users reach that 150 limit on Path, they'll only be able to add another friend by cutting someone from their list. In this way, Path forces people to constantly evaluate their existing friendships by facing social decay head on.

It will be interesting to see how this social dynamic plays out. If I have 1,000 friends, I might not notice if someone has unfriended me – but I will definitely notice if I'm cut from a list of 150 people, especially if we have mutual friends. What impact will this have?

In this age of social networking, algorithms will continue to evolve to account for the various types of digital relationships that we have. Facebook and Path seem to be taking this in two very different directions, but is either one the right solution? Is there a way to organize our social relationships online that doesn’t lead to unhealthy behaviour?

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

The West Memphis Three Go Free

State Children'sTime here, very strange. I'm surprised sometimes I do things, such as arthritis or look in the mirror and I saw that my hair is thinning.Damien - EcholsA greater gift for a filmmaker to see their work actually affect the real world?- Joe Berlinger
Torture: "It is not true that the people of Arkansas to stand up and raise hell," John Mark Byers announced near the end of Paradise Lost 3. The Jonesboro, Arkansas stood out in a court, after Circuit Court Judge David Lester has released the West Memphis Three.Three Byers stepson, Chris and eight year old boy, was for the murder of prison since 1994. For almost two decades, Byers was convicted killers Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and against the fierce, but the recording in August 2011, he was raging against the justice system. "Three innocent people," he bellows, "which is that he is guilty for crimes they did not know and that is nonsense, they are innocent. Are to be claimed, they did not kill my son and it's wrong what was the state of Arkansas to cover your ass. "

Catering to a Baby's Tastes

The Mark talks to Jim Sears, co-host on the Dr. Phil hit spin-off series called The Doctors!, about building healthy eating habits in babies.

Explaining the Baby Brain

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
type="html">

Alison Gopnik has spent decades researching babies' brains and learning that there is far more going on in the crib then we have ever given the tiny humans credit for. We reached Professor Gopnik at her office to get her take on the real “Baby Brain” and to help first-time parents get inside the head's of their babies.

You have spent years researching babies’ brains and learning that there's far more going on in there than we ever gave babies credit for. I’d like to ask you about the first year of life in the world of the baby. In your years of research, what has changed in the way that we look at, or understand, babies?

Thirty years ago, people thought babies and young children were egocentric, irrational, and illogical, that they lived in a blooming, buzzing confusion, and that their minds were a blank slate. In the last 30 years, we have discovered that, if anything, just the opposite of this is true – that even the very youngest babies both know more and learn more than we ever would have thought possible.

So what is it like to be a baby?

For a long time, philosophers, psychologists, and psychiatrists who study babies would have said that being a baby was not much of anything – that there wasn't much consciousness there for babies and young children. And there was even a time when people did operations with very little anesthesia on newborns because they felt that they weren't conscious.

What we've discovered, however, is that there are some respects in which babies and young children may actually be more conscious than adults. As adults, we are vividly conscious of the particular things we're paying attention to, but what happens is that we shut out the other things going on around us. Babies and young children don't seem to shut things out the same way that we do. We say that children are bad at paying attention, but what they're actually bad at is not paying attention. They are paying attention to, and thus getting information from, everything going on around them. If you think about the kind of attention we have as grown-ups as a spotlight that puts light on a particular part of the world, then the kind of attention we have as babies is more of a lantern that spreads out and illuminates a much larger space.

One of your most widely known books is called The Scientist in the Crib. How is a baby a scientist?

One of the big discoveries that we've made in the last 30 years is that young children learn as much as they do about the world by unconsciously using some of the very same techniques that scientists use – making statistical analyses of data, doing experiments, etc. – except, of course, that when babies do experiments, we call it "playing around" or "getting into everything." Scientists can get the best information about what's going on in the world by using something called Bayesian inference, which involves combining common-sense knowledge with evidence gleaned from observation. What we've discovered is that babies and young children are unconsciously doing the same kind of thing.

Your most recent book is called The Philosophical Baby. How is a baby a philosopher?

Babies are learning about the way the physical things in the world work, but they are also trying to solve the same kinds of problems that philosophers have tried to solve, like figuring out what's going on in the mind of another person. That's what philosophers have called the "other minds problem," but it turns out that it is an important problem for babies as well.

There has been a lot of talk in the news recently about how some Apple and Google top executives send their children to the Waldorf School, which doesn't allow computers. What is your take on the influence of computers and television on the brain's development?

The truth is that we don't know because we haven't done the studies, and it's probably too soon to tell. One thing that we do know is that babies are designed to learn very well – indeed, to learn best – from real live human beings. Passive activities like watching television or Baby Einstein tapes certainly don't seem to help babies any. If anything, they may have negative effects – but they certainly don't have any positive effects.

On the other hand, I think it's always been true that we learn about the technologies that are important to us in our culture. By the time children are preschoolers they're already beginning to be sensitive to the fact that well, “Wait a minute, these computers are the things that everyone around me is using.” And I think children might be especially good at learning about computers because they’re interactive.

I think the most important thing, especially for very young children, is to find out what the people around them are like, and to interact with real live people. On the other hand, I'm not sure it does any harm for children (certainly by the time they're in school) to start interacting with some of these devices that are actually going to be incredibly important for them in adult life.

I recently heard about an anthropologist who was working with a group of people in Latin America who were still basically hunter-gatherers, and he said, "You know, those four-year-olds know how to use a machete," which seems a little weird to us. We wouldn't let our four-year-olds use machetes. But, when a machete's a really important technology for a society, four-year-olds learn how to use it. Similarly, four-year-olds could quite possibly figure out how to use computers, but it is still clear that what's really important is for them to have real live people interacting with them.

The truth is, we just don't know yet what the effects of computers are going to be.

One last question: In your view, what is one of the greatest gifts that babies can give to adults?

I mentioned before that babies seem to have this broad lantern of attention. They really seem to be designed to spend most of their time learning. They're very wide open to a lot of things in the world around them. We adults are sort of forced by our circumstances to have a much narrower focus of vision. We're just focused on whatever it is we need to do next, and so forth. But when we're with babies and young children, we can temporarily get some of that broader vision and openness. One of the things I say is that if you try to go to the corner store for a gallon of milk with a four-year-old, you'll suddenly realize that this street you're completely used to, that has sort of become invisible to you, is suddenly full of all of these fantastic, wonderful, exciting things. And it may take you four times as long to get to the store, but you realize that it's four times as rich an experience.

Cooking for Your Baby in the First Year

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
type="html">

Weaning is one of the most important milestones for moms and dads during the early months of parenthood. The choices you make for your baby during that time will establish his or her eating habits for life.

Weaning is a gentle process. There is a window of opportunity when your child is between six and 12 months of age when he or she will tend to eat pretty well. Take advantage of this time to introduce your child to a variety of new flavours that will hopefully set him or her on a path of healthy eating for life.

From the time babies are around six months old, their regular milk no longer provides them with all the nutrients they need – in particular, vitamin D and iron. However, it is important to remember that your baby’s milk will continue to form a significant part of his or her nutrition for many months to come.

When babies are ready to start solids, parents should breastfeed them as usual, or, if they are on formula, make sure they get at least 28 oz per day. Try feeding them after they have had their first solids instead of before, so that they are hungrier and more willing to try foods being offered.

Fresh is best

Some parents are put off cooking for their little ones from scratch by the thought of all the mess, the preparation, and the possibility that, after all the hard work, their babies will reject it. However, cooking from scratch is often a much more economical and rewarding experience than buying ready-made food: Fresh really is best.

When you begin to wean your baby, it is best to start by offering them vegetables, fruit, or baby rice. Sweet root vegetables such as carrots and sweet potatoes are my top choices – then fruits such as cooked apples and pears. Purée these to a consistency similar to yogurt. Slowly progress to lumpier, thicker purées, and then lumps. Variety is important: The greater the variety, the easier it will be to progress to a healthy, nutritious diet.

Remember, the first stage of weaning is about introducing new tastes and teaching the art of eating – it can take some time.

Tips for cooking From scratch

Food should not be overcooked or cooked for long periods of time at a high temperature, as this destroys a lot of the nutrients.

Add as much variety as possible: This makes the transition to family food much easier, and helps avoid fussiness.

As fresh food is not sterilized, it keeps more natural nutrients. It is also far more economical.

No-cook purées are great first foods to give your little one, and they are perfect for when you are out and about. Good examples of these include banana, avocado, mango, peach, and papaya. (Banana and avocado mixed together is a very popular combination).

The best ways to cook first foods include steaming fresh vegetables, which retains more nutrients than boiling them would, and baking root vegetables, which naturally caramelizes the sugars to make the vegetable nice and sweet. It is a good idea to use these naturally sweet root vegetables to introduce green vegetables such as spinach to the diet.

To save time and money, batch-cook your purées and freeze them in ice-cube trays. Spending a couple of hours in the kitchen during the weekend, you can prepare enough food to feed your baby for the week. Try mixing different frozen cubes of puréed fruits and vegetables, such as pear and apple or apple and carrot.

Introduce protein to the diet fairly quickly. Red meat is a particularly important source of iron (babies’ natural iron supply runs out around the time that they are six months old), and oily fish such as salmon contain essential fatty acids needed for brain and visual development. Jars and pouches with savoury recipes only contain small amounts of protein.

Do not stick to a diet of just fruit and vegetables for too long. Babies need calories to grow, so it is a good idea to mix purées with cheese and give your baby proteins such as chicken, fish, and meat after six months.

Annabel Karmel is creator of Annabel’s Essential Guide to Feeding your Baby and Toddler iPhone App

A Veteran, Regardless of Age

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
type="html">

Having gained numerous professional qualifications including infantry, logistics, and intelligence, as well as an advanced degree from the Royal Military College, by the time I retired from the Canadian Forces in 2004, I had completed over 20 years of full- or part-time service. Certainly, by even the most discerning historical precedent, I had earned the right to be called a veteran.

But many seem baffled by the application of the venerable “v” word, and all that it implies, to a 40-something or, God forbid, someone younger. Noticing my car’s special veteran licence plates, people ask me, “Is this your Dad’s car?” And when I tell them it’s mine, the usual response is: “You look too young to be a veteran.”

Each year on Remembrance Day, an 80- or 90-year old ex-soldier will be venerated as a “real” war veteran, even if that person only served for a year or two, working as a cook, clerk, or hospital orderly here in Canada during the Second World War, and barely learned to shoot a rifle. And somewhere in the background, there will be a 30- or 40-year-old battle-scarred former combat soldier who partook in deadly fire fights during the wars in Bosnia or Afghanistan, and lost his leg to an improvised explosive device. Despite these experiences, commitments to country, and battle wounds to prove it, this person will not be seen as a bona-fide veteran, and will instead be referred to as an ex-soldier, former peacekeeper, or wounded warrior.

So what makes someone a “real” veteran? Some serving members of the Canadian Forces receive benefits from Veterans Affairs, and can therefore be included in veteran statistics. Generally, though, the Department of National Defence (DND) and Veterans Affairs Canada define a veteran as someone who fulfills “the DND’s military occupational classification requirements” and has “been released from the Forces with an honourable discharge.” That includes me, in my 40s, just as it includes people in my father and grandfather’s generation, and even the late-teen or 20-something “kid” who has just returned from Afghanistan.

---

Related: That Which We Call a War

---

Not wanting to admit to age discrimination, some say they are reluctant to apply the term “veteran” to younger ex-soldiers because people in my age group did not fight in a “real” war like the Second World War.

Does a war fought on a larger geopolitical scale make the service of individual Canadians more valuable? And what corresponding value does this attitude assign to subsequent generations of Canadian servicemen who witnessed wars in Cyprus (1974), former Yugoslavia (1991-95), and Afghanistan? How can a soldier who took a bullet for Canada in 2006 during the Battle of Panjwaii in Afghanistan be considered less valuable then, let’s say, one who took a bullet for Canada during the Normandy landings of 1944?

What these people seem to be arguing is that younger veterans did not fight in wars as “deadly” as the Second World War. But, statistically, just how much deadlier was the Second World War to the Canadian military? According to the research of Sean Bruyea, a noted veteran advocate, the casualty rate for the approximately 700,000 soldiers who are serving, or have served, in the Canadian Forces since the Korean War is 7.5 per cent, not far behind the casualty rate from the Second World War of just more than 10 per cent. Keep in mind that a large portion of Canada’s Second World War service personnel never actually saw battle.

---

Related: What's Next for Canada's Armed Forces?

---

And, brace yourself for this, the casualty rate for our current Canadian Forces is actually about 0.6 per cent higher than the casualty rate for the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, and 5.4 per cent higher than the casualty rate for members of the Navy during the same conflict.

I have been reassured that people’s perception of me as a “real veteran” will change as my cohort ages and becomes less fresh of face. Unfortunately, by then it may be too late for my cohort to see the benefits – the highest possible support for health care and financial needs – that Canadians and their government claim they owe to all our veterans.

Perceiving younger veterans as a kind of “veteran-lite” has no doubt made it easier for successive governments to finagle their way out of this commitment and increasingly divest themselves of their responsibility to provide us with the same benefits that older veterans – particularly those who served in the Second World War – received.

---

Related: Remembering Our Veterans' Futures

---

Unlike previous generations, today’s veterans will not have the security and reliability of veteran disability pensions for service-related injuries. Those generous programs aimed at easing the transition from military to civilian life (such as subsidized university education and property grants) that were enjoyed by Second World War veterans are only a fantasy to today’s younger veterans. Furthermore, post-Korean War veterans are not entitled, even as many of us enter our senior years, to the very generous suite of health, family support, and respite services offered in Canada’s veteran hospitals.

It seems that in the eyes of the Canadian politicians and public, my long military service and willingness to fight and die for Canada simply does not matter as much as that of our older generation. But, despite the public’s perception, war is always “real,” and the commitment to fight for one’s country in any period is deserving of respect.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

Newborn Sleep Tips

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
type="html">

As every parent of a newborn knows (or soon finds out), in the first year of a baby's life, one of the hardest things to deal with is sleep deprivation. A lack of sleep makes every other challenge of child rearing even more challenging. Get sleep survival tips in this Q&A with Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child author, doctor and preeminent sleep guru, Marc Weissbluth.

What kind of sleep should parents be hoping for when they get home with their new baby?

In the newborn period, parents’ goal is to encourage the child to learn self-soothing skills – starting on the day they come home from the hospital. They should put the child down while he or she is drowsy but awake, and keep the intervals of wakefulness brief so the child doesn't become overtired. (If the child becomes overtired, it interferes with his or her ability to learn self-soothing skills.) Those intervals of wakefulness might be 30, 60, or 90 minutes for a newborn.

It’s important to start immediately: practicing encouraging sleep in the drowsy but awake period, keeping brief intervals of wakefulness, and getting Dad on board. That phrase – “getting Dad on board” – refers to anyone but the mother. So sometimes the father, sister, nanny, or grandparent should put the baby down to sleep after soothing, so the baby is more able to learn self-soothing independent of mother feeding.

What signs of baby fatigue are most often missed by first-time parents?

The subtle signs are: the child might be a little less engaged in the environment, his or her eyes might be less sparkling, the child might be socially less smiley, or he or she might be less focused on mom and dad, but maybe looking through them. The child’s body movements might also be slower. So the child appears to be somewhat quieter. If the child is actually fussy, or slightly irritable, then he or she has passed from being tired to overtired, and you say to yourself, “Whoops, I blew it. I should have started all of this10 minutes earlier.”

And what if the baby is already fussy (and thus overtired)? How can the parent calm the child when that's the case?

It depends on the degree of over-tiredness, and the age of the child. For a mild situation, the parents might just have to accept that they'll need to put forth more soothing to get the child to sleep, or that, once asleep, the child might not sleep very long. Or it may be that the child is so overtired that he or she won't fall asleep. In that case, you have to skip to the next sleeping period and try again.

Also, it's important to know when to let the child cry. Every mother of twins knows low-level crying happens all the time, because you can't clone a mom. When she's tending to one twin, the other child might be crying a bit, but she can't get to it in time and, in the meantime, the other infant has fallen asleep. That mother will develop the confidence to know that low-level crying, which you might call whimpering or moaning or just a little bit of fussiness, can be safely ignored.

If you had to break down the first year into distinct sleep phases, what would they be?

At six weeks of age, night sleep develops – longer night sleep with earlier bedtimes. At three to four months of age, naps begin to become more regular around mid-morning (9 a.m. or so) and midday (12 to 2 p.m. or so). These are not exact times, but guidelines. These naps are brief, but they get longer at six to nine months of age, so that, by six months of age, the duration of each nap – the mid-morning nap and the midday nap – is one to two hours. And there may or may not be a third nap. If there's a third nap, it disappears by nine months of age.

Is it ever too late for parents to start sleep training?

It's never too late, but the timing and the way you start it depends on your child's age. If the child is substantially past six weeks of age, but not yet substantially past four months of age, you focus on night sleep, because the night-sleep rhythm is used as an aid to help the child fall asleep. If the child is substantially past four months of age, you focus on day sleep and night sleep because you will be using the day sleep as an aid, too, to help the child fall asleep.

That might mean putting the child down drowsy but awake, it might mean getting other people involved, and it might mean tolerating some crying. However, you should not assume that there will always be crying, because I've done many sleep consultations and occasionally the family will move the child to an earlier bedtime. If the child falls asleep at this earlier bedtime, there is more net night sleep, and that causes the child to wake up better rested, so he or she begins to nap better … and all of these improvements come about without any crying. So there may or may not be crying.

Have you had any parents doubt the wisdom of the early bedtime?Of course. They're very skeptical that it will work. It's counterintuitive, but it does help many children. Once you see it, you believe it. And it's so obvious. But first-time parents are more skeptical, and I understand that.

What about parents who come home late from work at night and want to see their children but can't because of the early bedtime?

There are two ways to look at it. Here’s one example: Let’s say a child needs a bedtime, biologically speaking, and his or her circadian rhythm is approximately 6:30 or 7:30 p.m. – pretend that's the case. And because of commute times, the mother comes home from work around 9 p.m., and the child is sleep deprived because the child is kept up too late. But the mother adjusts her schedule and can come home at 8 p.m. That's the best she can do. Perhaps the child is still going to bed a little too late, but the reality is that 8 p.m. is better than 9 p.m.

We do the best we can in the real world to try to have the child go to bed as early as he or she needs to. Nothing's perfect. Having said that, if the child can be put to bed early, the child should be put to bed early, and sometimes parents might have to make the decision to do so even if it means that they don’t get to see their child at night because of their work schedules, but they spend morning time with their baby and it's warm, loving, friendly playing time, or time spent together as they feed the baby.

There's no 11th commandment that says you have to put your baby to bed at night. But it's important to have a well-rested family. And the benefits are enormous. There are parents who accept this and understand it and, as a result, will put their baby to bed when the child is getting drowsy. But the consequence is that they might not see the child at night Monday through Friday.

A Solution for Colic

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
type="html">

Every year, roughly 25 percent of newborns are born with colic – a condition that is diagnosed when a baby cries for more than three hours per day. Parents and doctors have remained flummoxed by the question of colic – its causes and cures – for ages. Harvey Karp is one of North America's leading paediatricians on the subject. His best-selling book, The Happiest Baby on the Block, has helped thousands of parents cope with colic in newborns. We reached Dr. Harvey Karp for this Q&A at his paediatric practice in Los Angeles.

What do we know today about colic and its causes?

For thousands of years, we thought that colic was an intestinal discomfort that babies had, either caused from overeating or having stomach gas. They would double up and seem to squirm in pain and often pass gas. In fact, the word colic comes from the same basic word as the word colon. Children would be treated with all sorts of things, from extra burping to hot water bottles for the stomach to special formulas.

Studies have shown that, in western cultures, about 15 percent of children have what's described as colic, according to the medical definition.

Most babies cry and fuss for about an hour or an hour-and-a-half per day, but some will cry and fuss for more than three hours, which is the medical definition of colic. You'll notice it doesn't say anything about the cause of the crying.

What’s your opinion about the cause of colic?

In my view, the cause of colic is that our babies are born three months before they're really ready for the world. And because of that, they have this funny combination of being over-stimulated, on the one hand, and terribly under-stimulated, on the other (the latter being the much bigger problem).

In the womb, the baby has a non-stop symphony of sensations. He or she is being held, touched, and jiggled, and hears the non-stop sound of the blood flow, which is louder than a vacuum cleaner, 24/7. So to bring a baby into your house and put them in a dark, quiet room by themselves is sensory depriving. Some kids can tolerate that, and some kids just can't. They need the stimulation that they had inside the womb, and what I observe in my work is that when you imitate the sensations of the womb, it doesn't just reassure them – it literally flips a switch. It turns on a calming reflex that all babies have at birth.

What are some things that parents can do to simulate the womb environment?

I call it the “Five S’s” to imitate the womb and turn on the calming reflex.

The first “S” is swaddling with the arms down.

The second “S” is the side or stomach position. (Lying on the back is the only safe position for a baby to sleep in, but it's the worst position for calming a crying baby. So when they're crying, pick them up in your arms and roll them to the side or stomach position.)

The third “S” is shushing, which imitates the sound in the womb – when a baby is crying, you have to shush literally as loud as he or she is crying, which can be as loud as a hair dryer. (Once you’ve calmed them down with that loud shushing, you can decrease the intensity a little bit.)

The fourth “S” is a swinging or jiggling motion. (You can achieve this by sitting on the edge of your bed bouncing, sitting on an exercise ball, dancing around the house, going for a walk on a pebbly walkway to get that bouncing in the stroller, or putting your baby in a sling for a nice long walk.)

The last “S” is sucking, once you've calmed the baby down. Some fussy babies will suck right away. Sometimes they'll be hungry, so nursing them will calm them down. But usually, once you've calmed them with the other “S’s,” the sucking is like the icing on the cake that gets them to an even more profound level of calm.

Can you describe what happens to first-time parents who have a colicky baby?

Everyone pictures having the perfect baby who is going to be cuddly and sweet and never have any problems. So it's very unnerving to have a baby who cries and cries for long periods, and nothing makes you feel worse than not meeting your baby’s needs.

It's even more serious than that, because it turns out that crying and exhaustion are the number one triggers for some serious problems like marital stress, postpartum depression, shaken-baby syndrome, breastfeeding failure, and even sudden infant death syndrome and suffocation, because babies cry so much that the parent will bring the baby into bed with them and accidentally get the baby in an unsafe position. It also leads to parents starting smoking again, and to obesity (because sometimes you're so tired you're just making the wrong decisions and it's easy to overeat).

Now, colic usually peaks at about six to eight weeks of age, and usually by three to four months of age it's pretty much passed on its own. But if you can do those Five S's during those first few months, you really can help your baby settle faster. Interestingly, the more you do the Five S's, the faster your baby will responds to them. Babies learn that those things are going to calm them down.

In your book, you described ancient lessons that we can learn from African bushmen on how to avoid colicky babies – most notably, holding babies as much as possible and breastfeeding them regularly throughout the day. How can modern American parents implement this kind of care?

There are many things that we can do to imitate what people do in Africa, and even to be better and more effective than the moms in Africa.

Holding your baby, ensuring skin-to-skin contact, carrying your baby in a safe sling, and nursing – those are all wonderful ways of meeting your baby's need for contact and for nurturing stimulation.

In addition to that, we've got things like white-noise MP3s and CDs, swaddling blankets, and reclining swings that can make the baby feel like he or she is in your arms when you have to leave to take a shower or cook dinner.

And of course there are pacifiers if you're not going to be available.

How to Help a Baby with Colic

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
type="html">

When a baby cries, someone is bound to label the distress “colic.” The trouble is that, while not all crying babies have colic, all colicky babies cry. How do you know if it is the correct diagnosis? Here are four factors that point directly to colic:

• Colic occurs only with newborns, up to about four to five months old.
• It involves a regular period of inconsolable crying, typically late in the day.
• The crying bouts last one to three hours or more.
• The baby is healthy and has a happy disposition at other times of the day.

If you believe your baby has colic, it’s important that you talk with your health-care professional and take your baby in for a checkup to rule out any medical problems. If your baby is given a clean bill of health then you’ll know colic is the culprit.

Researchers are unsure of colic’s exact cause. Some experts believe it is related to the immaturity of a baby’s digestive system. Others theorize that babies’ immature nervous systems and inability to handle the sensory stimulation that surrounds them cause a breakdown by the end of the day. Whatever the cause – and it may be a combination of things – colic is among the most exasperating conditions that parents of new babies face.

Things that may ease cryingWhile nothing will eliminate colic completely, there are ways to help ease your baby’s tears. Try one idea and watch for signs of improvement, like shorter, or less intense, periods of crying. Any ideas that help you become a calmer parent are helpful, as well. Here are some common ideas that can help ease babies’ crying:

• Use a baby carrier often during the day, and especially during colicky periods, to ward off crying. Carrying your baby in an upright position can be beneficial.
• If breastfeeding, feed your baby on demand (cue feeding), for the sake of nutrition as well as comfort. Try avoiding foods that may cause your baby to have gas. The most common offenders are dairy products, caffeine, cabbage, and broccoli.
• If bottle-feeding, offer more frequent, but smaller, meals. Experiment with different formulas, with your doctor’s approval. Try different types of bottles and nipples that prevent air from entering your baby as he or she drinks.
• Hold your baby in a more upright position for feeding, and directly afterwards.
• Experiment with when, how often, and how you burp your baby.
• Offer your baby meals in a quiet setting, free from loud noises and distractions.
• If your baby likes a pacifier, offer one when crying starts.
• Take a stroller walk outside, or, if the weather’s unpleasant, bring your stroller in the house for a walk around.
• Give your baby a warm bath or bring him or her into the tub with you.
• Massage your baby’s tummy, or hold your baby on your lap with his or her legs curled up toward his or her belly.
• Swaddle your baby. Create a nice, snug fit around the upper body, leaving more room in the lower area for natural leg and hip movement.
• Hold your baby in a rocking chair, or put him or her in a swinging cradle.
• When possible, keep your baby away from highly stimulating situations during the afternoon and early evening to prevent sensory overload.
• Do not allow anyone to smoke in the house or near your baby. (Studies link second-hand smoke with an increase in colic symptoms.)
• Play soothing music like lullabies or white-noise recordings (such as ocean waves) during colicky periods.
• Ask your doctor about medications available to treat colic and gas.

Tips for copingAs difficult as colic is for a baby, it is just as challenging for the parents. Know that your baby will cry during his or her colicky time, and that, while you can do things to make your baby more comfortable, nothing you do will completely stop the crying. This is not a result of anything you’ve done or not done. Know that babies do not suffer long-term harm from having colic. Six months from now, you won’t see the slightest effects of these crying spells.

Onttrekkend de Unbanked markt

Error in deserializing body of reply message for operation 'Translate'. The maximum string content length quota (8192) has been exceeded while reading XML data. This quota may be increased by changing the MaxStringContentLength property on the XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas object used when creating the XML reader. Line 2, position 8980.
Error in deserializing body of reply message for operation 'Translate'. The maximum string content length quota (8192) has been exceeded while reading XML data. This quota may be increased by changing the MaxStringContentLength property on the XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas object used when creating the XML reader. Line 1, position 8960.
type="html">

This is Part 2 of a two-part series exploring the opportunity to service the large unbanked and underbanked population in North America through innovative new banking services. Part 1 discussed the need for “mobile wallets” in North America, and how they could benefit lower-income communities in the same region. Part 2 takes a closer look at the stakeholders that are poised to offer mobile banking services.

Post economic downturn, there is a healthy demand for prepaid cash services in the United States. In 2012, $118.5 billion will be loaded onto prepaid cards, accounting for 650 per cent growth since 2009. Establishing a light mobile wallet will grow this existing market and add valuable services to the U.S. economy, helping members of the lower-income, cash-dependent community build and protect their wealth while avoiding fees associated with traditional banking services.

According to a Federal Reserve Bank publication from 2010, “Unbanked consumers spend approximately 2.5 to 3 percent of a government benefits check and between 4 percent and 5 percent of payroll check just to cash them.” Clearly, there is a need for services that would reduce this “poverty tax” on unbanked consumers. But what solutions are currently on the table, and which players in the value chain are motivated to champion mobile-cash services?

---

Related: Servicing the Unbanked

---

To date, providers of mobile payment methods (namely, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile with their Isis mobile-wallet initiative, and Google, in partnership with Sprint, with its Google Wallet) have focused on their banked subscribers. Are the wireless carriers the shining bullet that could enable services for the unbanked (like direct top-up) that allow for more convenient, reliable, and direct payment capabilities? Below, I outline the various services we can expect to see, as well as the providers that will likely take to the market to service the unbanked.

1. Stored-value vendors

The stored-value card is one of the fastest-growing products in the financial industry. Gift cards, prepaid telephone cards, and open-loop cards all use a stored-value-card network. Vanilla Visa is a perfect example of a successful open-loop stored-value card.

Rumour has it that mobile-commerce companies CorFire and InComm are working to provide white-label mobile-wallet apps, allowing merchants to issue prepaid virtual gift cards to customers under their own retail brand. Customers will be able to use the stored value by bringing their mobile phones (with the downloaded app) to the register.

It is inevitable that the same companies that brought you plastic stored value will also make use of these virtual services. Walmart, for example, cashes government and printed payroll cheques for the discounted price of $3, and has expanded services to a reloadable, prepaid Visa debit card that does not require a bank account or proof of U.S. citizenship. Virtual or mobile services would expand this further. Look to this retailer to become a big player in mobile banking among the unbanked and unhappily banked.

2. Money-transfer agents

Money transfer is another huge business opportunity in the unbanked market. According to Jason DeParle of The New York Times, “Globally, the tally is huge: migrants from poor countries send home about $300 billion a year. That is more than three times the global total in foreign aid.” Such migrants often pay more than $20 per transfer, and their recipients frequently have to travel for hours to pick up the remitted funds.

Companies such as First Data Corp.’s Western Union Financial Services Inc. and MoneyGram International Inc. handle most of the estimated $25 billion a year sent between the United States and Mexico, while banks are responsible for transferring only about five per cent of that amount.

Services such as “PayNearMe” allow cash customers to complete simple or complex transactions easily at 7-Eleven. Emida, a prepayment and transfer technology provider, has developed a mobile wallet called “Cash and Transact” (CAT) that allows users to “pay bills, buy groceries, transfer money to family and friends in remote locations and much more.” Finally, in late 2011, m-Via, a Palo Alto-based company, launched a peer-to-peer money-transfer service called “Boom,” in which users use mobile phones to make money transfers through a retail network including 7-Eleven and ATM networks in the U.S. and Mexico.

3. Wireless Carriers

Verizon Wireless planned to introduce a $2 “convenience fee” for those who made onetime bill payments online or over the phone, but, after a barrage of protest from those who accused it of exploiting low-income subscribers who live paycheque to paycheque, the carrier dropped this proposed fee. Verizon and other wireless carriers are actually some of the players that are most interested in providing cash wallets to their prepaid customers, as prepaid-card networks currently eat up 15 per cent of their prepaid top-up revenue.

AT&T Inc. has tried to move on-demand payment subscribers to an automatic payment system by promising them a $10 gift card if they make the switch. However, whether carrot or stick, the only real solution for wireless carriers is to step outside of the traditional banking structure and use mobile media to provide long-term solutions.

---

Related: Microfinance Goes Public

---

4. Financial institutions

In November 2011, Visa announced it is offering a prepaid mobile product, developed in South Africa, which is designed to serve the underbanked in developing countries – particularly those who have previously lacked access to formal financial services. The new product allows customers to send and receive international remittances via mobile phone, to make purchases at stores or online, and to access cash through an ATM where Visa is accepted.

Thus far in North America, financial institutions have not taken advantage of the opportunity to offer mobile services to the unbanked. Earlier this year, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo launched clearXchange, an initiative that allows the banked to move money using a mobile number. However, this is predicated on an existing banking relationship. The service is simple to use, but establishing the necessary banking relationship is a considerably complex process for an unbanked person.

Over the next year, much of the industry focus will be on the NFC-enabled mobile-wallet platform promoted by Google Wallet and Isis. However, the North American market has an opportunity to develop a viable business model for the forgotten 20 per cent – those citizens who remain unbanked and underbanked.

While we wait for retailers and handset manufacturers to transition shoppers into the use of mobile wallets, there are many motivated stakeholders ready to service the unbanked. Prepaid services are increasingly popular, there are global models ready to emulate, and, while financial institutions need to be in the value chain, it is more likely that wireless carriers, payment vendors, money-transfer vendors, and perhaps government will innovate in this sector and take the lead in emancipating 60 million hard-working Americans by creating and promoting a light-weight cash-focused mobile wallet.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

Open for Business, Closed to Criticism

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
type="html">

Apparently Canada is open for business but closed to criticism, no matter how constructive. This is the clearest conclusion that can be drawn from Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver’s open letter to Canadians, in which he attacks advocates of responsible oil-sands development as “radicals” and dismisses the concerns of thousands of Canadians who want to have a say in the decision of whether to build Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.

The $6.6-billion project would run two parallel pipelines carrying diluted bitumen and condensate along a 1,177-kilometre route linking the oil sands in Alberta with the remote port of Kitimat on the northern B.C. coast. The pipelines would traverse hundreds of salmon-bearing rivers and streams, the mountainous and landslide-prone terrain, the Great Bear Rainforest, and the territory of more than 50 First Nations.

The joint review panel public hearings that have just begun aim to determine whether the project is in the interest of Canadians.

But recent statements from the Harper government indicate it is not interested in listening to the concerns of more than 4,000 Canadians who have signed up to speak at the hearings. Forget the democratic process and ignore the obligations of due diligence and harm prevention inherent in Canada’s environmental review process – as Oliver states, “For our government, the choice is clear.”

In fact, the minister’s letter makes one wonder if he spends any time at all listening to those Canadians who care about environmental protection and responsible resource development. Dismissing opponents of this project as “ideological” and opposed to all major projects, Oliver ironically ignores the ideological underpinnings of the Harper government’s consistent efforts to pit economic growth against environmental protection.

---

Related: Pipeline Politics Gets Dirty

---

The two objectives don’t have to be mutually exclusive. The Pembina Institute has long argued for responsible oil-sands development – and we’ve done our due diligence to map out 19 policy solutions that could move Canada closer to that goal. But rather than fulfill its duty to ensure environmentally responsible oil-sands development, the Harper government has preferred to engage in the “bait and switch” PR manoeuvres of the “ethical oil” crowd.

A pipeline rupture along the mountainous interior B.C. route and a supertanker spill in the waters off the Pacific Coast are two significant risks associated with this project. The government’s refusal to acknowledge and address those risks ¬¬¬– let alone demonstrate how it would propose cleaning up the potential damage and compensating the British Columbians whose livelihoods would be affected – is irresponsible.

Canadians deserve a government that is willing to listen to their concerns about our current course of energy development and take those concerns seriously. Interfering in due process (particularly for a project of this magnitude, and one in which so many Canadians have a legitimate interest in the outcome) risks more than the integrity of our natural resources – it undermines the basic principles of a democratic society.

The government has also been outspoken in its criticism of “foreign intervention” in the Gateway hearings – that is, input from environmental advocates outside Canada. But a quick bit of number-crunching by Environmental Defence shows that the government is overstating the case: Of the 216 interveners registered to participate in the hearings, not one represents an environmental group from outside of Canada, while 10 represent multinational corporations.

Forty First Nations from B.C. and Alberta make up the largest single block of registered interveners, and of the 4,522 people registered to make 10-minute oral presentations at the hearings, 79 per cent are British Columbians.

There certainly may be room to improve the efficiency of the regulatory approvals process for energy projects in the future. But standing up for Canada means ensuring that energy developers don’t profit from extracting our resources and degrading our environment while Canadians are stuck paying for the cleanup bill. This is quite contrary to the Harper government’s apparent desire to bulldoze any opposition to the government’s oil-sands-development agenda – especially when that opposition emerges from within our borders.

---

Related: A Pipeline to Nowhere

---

Minister Oliver states that, “Our regulatory system must be fair, independent, consider different viewpoints including those of Aboriginal communities, review the evidence dispassionately and then make an objective determination. It must be based on science and the facts.”

We couldn’t agree more, and can’t help but point out the troubling disconnect between the minister’s call for a “dispassionate” and “objective” approach and his government’s blatant political interference in the process.

Remember the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last summer? The fact is, such a disastrous spill could easily happen here, too. Canada’s environment commissioner recently warned Parliament that pipeline regulators were being too lax in their efforts to ensure safety, pipeline integrity, and environmental protection. And our research into the risks of transporting oil-sands crude by pipeline along the Gateway route shows that neither the Canadian government nor the project’s proponent, Enbridge, is prepared to deal with the consequences of a worst-case-scenario spill.

Canadians are right to be concerned about the costs and risks associated with this project. The hearings kicking off this week are designed to ensure that the government takes those concerns into account before rushing this project ahead.

Too bad the government doesn’t seem to be in the mood to listen.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

A Future for Public Diplomacy?

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
type="html">

In a recent article on The Mark, I demonstrated that the paradigm for the delivery of Canadian international policy shifted fundamentally during the 1980s and ’90s. Over the course of those years, there was a deliberate move away from an emphasis on traditional, state-to-state interaction, and toward public diplomacy (PD). PD is a form of international political exchange that features diplomats communicating directly with foreign populations and cultivating partnerships with civil-society actors – NGOs, businesspeople, journalists, and academics. As I discussed before, the PD formula, in conjunction with the right combination of political will and bureaucratic skill, can produce impressive results, especially if directed towards projects with broad popular and media appeal, such as a land-mine ban or efforts to improve the lot of children in conflict zones.

Looking back, it can be seen that Canadian PD reached its apogee during Lloyd Axworthy’s years as foreign minister (1996-2000). At a time of severe government-wide cost-cutting, Canada fundamentally downsized its international ambitions, but that exercise was not translated into a retreat from the field. To be sure, the large-scale, long-range, potentially world-changing projects of the post-war decades – poverty eradication, conflict resolution, and global environmental conservation – were gone. In their place, Canadian officials proposed a series of special projects – such as curbs on the trading of “blood” diamonds and small arms – designed for implementation within media-friendly diplomatic niches. They did not always succeed, but each initiative featured a defined start and finish. Upon completion, the foreign minister could simply call a press conference, declare victory, and move on.

Axworthy very quickly learned how the use of soft power could make a virtue of necessity. Conventional diplomacy was still necessary, but it was no longer sufficient when it came to influencing foreign governments. That influence was best brought to bear through their publics, and through international public opinion, especially when compulsion was not an option and democratization had expanded the scope for exercising influence indirectly.

---

Related: Canadian Public Diplomacy, Then and Now

---

The requirements associated with this burst of activism imposed significant costs upon the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade’s (DFAIT) staff, already struggling under the burden of increased demands and reduced resources. Moreover, some strategic opportunities were missed. In 1996-97, for instance, the department’s Communications Bureau proposed the launch of an ambitious project that would have vaulted Canada into the digital age by establishing an integrated global presence based upon satellite broadcasting, the internet, public diplomacy, international education, and branding. In the end, however, at a time of diminishing capacity across government, the project, titled the Canadian International Information Strategy, lost out in Cabinet to the campaign to ban land mines (later christened the “Ottawa Process”). Canada might today be more effective and influential in the world had circumstances – particularly timing and the economic environment – been more propitious during that critical period.

In bureaucracy, there is often a lag between action and reflection. The Axworthy years were so frenetic that there was little time to think through the full implications of the program in terms of the design, structure, and operations of the foreign ministry. As a result, generic interest in PD within the DFAIT apparatus actually peaked following Axworthy’s departure. For the first five years of the new century, significant efforts were made to weave PD into the department’s modus operandi. A new PD secretariat was established in Washington to co-ordinate advocacy activities in the United States. The idea of “mainstreaming public diplomacy” was central to a comprehensive reform package entitled Building a 21st Century Foreign Ministry, or FAC21, which DFAIT’s deputy ministers launched in 2004. When Jean Chrétien stepped down from his role as prime minister the same year, the new leader, Paul Martin, commissioned a comprehensive international policy review. In the final, five-volume report, “A Role of Pride and Influence in the World,” PD was highlighted as “the new diplomacy.” Neither initiative survived the defeat of the Liberal government a few years later.

Although it has been scarcely more than a decade since Axworthy left office, the years of Canadian public-diplomatic activism now seem long ago. Ironically, despite the many practical successes and, later, some focused internal interest, PD never received the extent of budgetary support that might have been anticipated. This is doubly curious because although Axworthy’s Liberal successors, John Manley, Bill Graham, and Pierre Pettigrew, did not share his enthusiasm for human security, they did seem to buy into PD. Manley mandated a public-diplomacy working group within the secretariat conducting his – albeit short-lived – Foreign Policy Update in 2001, and, beginning in 2003, Graham used the interactive potential of the internet to reach out to Canadians with his Foreign Policy Dialogue. But political interest in undertaking concrete diplomatic initiatives had waned well before the January 2006 election of a Conservative minority government. Almost immediately, the previous administration’s policy review was shelved, government communications were centralized and placed under strict control, and DFAIT officials were gagged.

Canadian public diplomacy, already in decline and lethally tainted by its association with the outgoing Liberal government, effectively disappeared. Memories of independent Canadian leadership on global issues are receding, and the drift towards continental integration continues.

---

Related: Diplomacy, Journalism, and the New Media

---

In May 2011, the Conservative party returned with a majority, and John Baird, a prominent and influential Tory insider, was named foreign minister. Baird speaks of the need for a “tough” foreign policy, and the overall emphasis favours the military over diplomacy and development assistance. Yet there are stirrings within DFAIT of a possible PD renewal. A modest experiment has been launched, allowing several of Canada’s European ambassadors to engage foreign audiences using social-media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, and this enterprise may eventually be expanded to include the participation of all Canadian missions.

That said, even under a best-case scenario Canada will still be trailing most of its diplomatic competition, both within the OECD and beyond. At this juncture, it would take a full-court press – and significant resources – to restore what has been lost. Unless and until DFAIT regains the full confidence, trust, and respect of its political masters, and is once again called upon to perform, any return to the halcyon days of Canadian PD activism seems unlikely.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.