FFWD Weekly
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| NEWS Calgary writer honored at Black Achievement Awards Calgary writer Cheryl Foggo has been named the recipient of the overall achievement award to be presented at the 1998 Black Achievement Awards on September 26 in Edmonton. Foggo is a descendant of the Black Oklahomans who settled in Amber Valley, Alberta, and Maidstone, Saskatchewan in 1910. She was born in Calgary and attended local schools, including the journalism program at Mount Royal College. Foggo began writing for magazines in 1980, while working in the orthodontic profession. She left orthodontics in 1985 pursue her lifelong passion for her ancestors' story, researching and writing Pourin' Down Rain, her first book, which chronicles her forebears' journey from Africa to America to Northwestern Canada. The book was a finalist for the 1990 Alberta Culture Non-fiction Award. Foggo has also received numerous nominations and awards for her film work, and her first young adult novel, On Thing That's True, has received many award nominations and garnered her the only Alberta nomination for the Governor General's Award for Canadian literature. She is also in demand as a lecturer and reader and has spoken to hundreds of Calgary schoolchildren about growing up Black in Calgary and about writing. In total, 38 Black Albertans from a wide range of backgrounds have been nominated for this year's awards, which honor people who have demonstrated a commitment to excellence in a number of areas, such as education, community and business. The awards are administered by the Black Achievement Awards Society of Alberta (BAASA), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting awareness of the contributions to society made by Alberta's Black community while providing youth with positive role models. The awards will be presented at a gala evening at Edmonton's Citadel Theatre. Tickets are available through the BAASA office in Calgary at 209-2242. Biologist hiking in the footsteps of the grizzly Recent bear sightings in Calgary have highlighted the problems wildlife face when they wander into cities or other areas where they confront human barriers. Wildlife risk injury and death as they cross highways and human development to make their way from one area to another. Banff Park warden and contract biologist Karsten Heuer is on a two-year 3,400-kilometre journey in an effort to raise awareness about the importance of maintaining connections for wildlife between wilderness areas. Heuer left Yellowstone National Park on June 6, 1998 and so far has completed more than 1,200 kilometres. His route, chosen to symbolize the path most likely to be taken by wildlife, links national parks, wilderness areas, Crown lands and private lands in Wyoming, Montana, Alberta and British Columbia. His trip will end in Watson Lake, Yukon in September 1999. The hike is intended to draw attention to the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative. Dubbed Y2Y, the initiative is a network of more than 100 conservation groups, wildlife scientists and economists who are working to maintain a system of critical wildlife movement "corridors" between existing protected areas from Yellowstone to the Yukon. The "corridors," managed for wildlife but not meant to exclude all human use, will allow animals to continue to move from one wilderness area to another. "If this initiative is successful, the hope is that wildlife in the Rockies will be able to avoid many of the influences that are forcing small isolated populations of wildlife throughout the world into extinction, such as inescapable inbreeding and disease," says Heuer. Along his route, Heuer is looking to highlight barriers to wildlife movement as well as positive examples of how wildlife movement can be accommodated in an increasingly human-dominated landscape. One example is a recent initiative undertaken by TransAlta in Banff National Park. This spring, TransAlta constructed a wildlife crossing using old railway cars covered with earth and vegetation to provide a bridge for animals to cross the Cascade hydro canal, after studies identified it as a barrier during the winter. Animals are now able to move back and forth across the canal, which stretches from Lake Minnewanka to Highway 1, along the north side of the Bow Valley. "In addition to advocating open landscapes, Y2Y supports TransAlta's initiative as an example of the creative steps that need to be taken in order to maintain wildlife movement throughout the Yellowstone to Yukon region," says Heuer. Heuer is scheduled to arrive in Banff on Thursday, September 17, where he will be holding a news conference to talk about his hike and initiatives to maintain wildlife movement. Loose Moose celebrates grand opening at Garry While it has been open and used sparingly for the past several months, renovations are finally complete on Loose Moose Theatre Company's new home in Inglewood, The Garry Theatre. To officially celebrate the auspicious occasion, as well as their 21st year as part of Calgary's theatre community, the company is holding a Grand Opening Weekend from September 18 to 21. Events include: the Black Tie Micetro Impro on Friday night; matinee performances of the Theatre for Kids play Hansel and Gretel on Saturday and Sunday; Gorilla Theatre on Saturday night; a late night grudge match meeting of teams from Calgary and Edmonton for the season kickoff of the famous improvisational competition Theatresports; and the season opener of the improvised Inglewood soap opera, Exposed!, on Monday night. For reservations or more information on the weekend festivities call 265-LMTC. Canadians listening to radio less Canadians are listening to the radio less and less. Time spent listening to the radio fell for the fourth consecutive year, dropping from 21.6 hours per week in the fall of 1993 to 19.9 hours in the fall of 1997. With this decrease, radio listening has returned to pre-1990 levels. Not all provinces contributed to this downward trend. Newfoundland and New Brunswick experienced a slight increase in radio listening compared with 1996, and in Quebec and Ontario, listening remained stable. All other provinces registered decreases in the radio listening rate, with British Columbia the lowest at 18.1 hours per week. Canadians continue to devote the largest share of their listening (38.7 per cent) to adult contemporary/gold/oldies/rock music. A distant second is country music (13.4 per cent), which registered the steepest decline (eight per cent) from the previous year. Country music is now just ahead of the primarily talk format, which captured 13.2 per cent of total listenership. At the provincial level, radio listening habits differ from one province to another. Adult contemporary/gold/oldies/rock music is most popular in Ontario, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Quebec. The country music format is predominant in Newfoundland, Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island. Although the talk radio format either does not exist or has a very low listenership in some provinces, its popularity in Quebec, Manitoba, British Columbia and Ontario is sufficient to put it in third place in Canada as a whole. A breakdown of listenership by age and sex also shows that adult contemporary/gold/oldies/rock music is the most popular with all age/sex groups, except for men and women aged 60 and over, who tend to prefer the talk radio format. The listening audience of FM stations has consistently exceeded that of AM stations since the fall of 1991. In the fall of 1997, FM stations captured nearly two-thirds of total radio listeners. The popularity of FM stations is evident in all age/sex groups, but especially among teens, who devote nearly 90 per cent of their listening time to FM stations. On average, teens (12 to 17 years of age) listen to the radio 10.7 hours per week, approximately half the levels of adults (18 years of age and over). Furthermore, teens' listening patterns differ greatly from those of adults -regardless of the day of the week or the time of day - and they prefer different station formats, including the contemporary music format, the dance music format and U.S. stations. (The results presented in this release are based on a survey of 74,761 Canadians aged 12 years and over.) Routine prenatal HIV screening program launched As of September 1, all pregnant women in Alberta will routinely be offered testing for HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). HIV testing will now be part of prenatal care and will be done unless a woman chooses not to be tested. All pregnant women can be tested through their doctor's office any time during the pregnancy, although generally it will be done early in prenatal care. The test requires that a small amount of blood be taken, and it is done along with other routine tests such as hepatitis B and rubella. "I am extremely pleased that this program is going ahead," says Health Minister Halvar Jonson. "With routine prenatal HIV screening we can reduce the number of children born with HIV and the terrible suffering they would endure. Detection of unsuspected HIV infection during pregnancy can also improve the health of the mother." Routine testing for HIV has been identified as one of the elements of optimal prenatal care by national and international professional bodies and advisory groups. Medical studies show the use of antiviral drugs during pregnancy significantly reduces the risk of transmission of HIV infection from mother to fetus by as much as two-thirds. Alberta Medical Association President Dr. Bill Anderson says the involvement of many stakeholders, women's health advocates, midwives and HIV-positive women was an important and productive part of the process. Alberta Health, Health Canada, and the Alberta Medical Association have worked together to develop educational materials for pregnant women and health care professionals. As well, information about HIV, treatment choices, and counselling has been prepared for woman who test positive. It is estimated that there are 15-20 HIV infected pregnant women each year in Alberta. Currently, the majority of the approximately 48,000 women who become pregnant each year in Alberta are not tested for HIV. The exact prevalence of infection in women of child-bearing age is unknown, but in both Alberta and throughout Canada, women account for the fastest increase in any risk group testing positive for HIV. In Alberta, by the end of 1997, 356 women had tested positive for HIV. Of these, more than 90 per cent were within the child-bearing years. Once fully implemented, the program will cost approximately $300,000 per year. A one-time cost of $50,000 has been approved to cover the costs of the educational component. Preventing infection in as few as two children each year will result in direct health care savings that balance the costs of routine laboratory testing. Alberta has lowest proportion of minimum wage workers One out of 20 employees in Canada worked for minimum wage or less in the first quarter of 1998, according to new data from the Labour Force Survey. Approximately 545,000 employees, or 4.8 per cent of the total, worked for minimum wage or less. Current minimum wages range from a low of $5 an hour in Alberta to a high of $7.15 in British Columbia. Most provinces have a minimum wage between $5 and $6. Newfoundland, which had the second lowest minimum wage, had the highest proportion of people working for minimum wage. Almost one in 10 employees (9.1 per cent) worked for minimum wage or less during the first quarter of 1998. In contrast, Alberta had the smallest proportion (2.6 per cent) and the lowest minimum wage. Ontario (4.9 per cent) and Quebec (5.2 per cent) were close to the national average. Provinces with high unemployment rates tended to have a greater percentage of minimum wage workers. Newfoundland's unemployment rate of 18.9 per cent in the first quarter was more than three times that of Alberta's (5.9 per cent). In effect, workers in Alberta have greater bargaining power, due to more work opportunities. Overall, there were more young people, more women, more students and more part-time workers among minimum wage workers. These individuals were concentrated primarily in the restaurant and retail trade industries. More than half (58 per cent or 316,000) of minimum wage workers were youths aged 15 to 24 - the majority of whom attended school full time. A further quarter (138,000) of minimum wage workers were adult women 25 to 54 years old. Minimum wage workers were three times more likely than other employees to work part time. Six out of every 10 of those earning minimum wage or less had a part-time job. From a family perspective, about half of minimum wage workers lived with their parents. Another 31 per cent were married or had a spouse. For the majority of these workers, the spouse earned more than the minimum wage. However, 14 per cent were the sole adult providers in the family, either because they had no spouse or because their spouse was not working. However, job growth in 1997 occurred in industries and occupations that tend to pay higher-than-average weekly wages, while the major employment losses tended to be concentrated in low-paying areas. Employment has increased by over 500,000 jobs since the beginning of 1997, primarily in the form of full-time work for employees (in contrast to earlier in the 1990s, when self-employment was the driving force behind job growth). Employees earned an average of $15.77 per hour before taxes and other deductions in May this year, one per cent higher than May 1997 and almost keeping pace with inflation (+1.1 per cent, as measured by the Consumer Price Index). Employees were paid an average of $583 per week, 1.5 per cent higher than in May 1997. Since the increase in average hourly pay did not exceed the pace of inflation, all of the increase in real weekly wages (i.e., weekly wages adjusted for changes in inflation) over the last year can be attributed to rising work hours. (This release is based on a comprehensive study of hourly and weekly wages earned by employees, published in the Summer 1998 issue of Labour force update.) |