Category Archives: Issues in Society

Learning about creating change in our society with examinations of important issues that are/may be viewed as irrelevant by government.

How to stay Safe on Canada’s Roads during the Coldest months

Education, Issues in Society, , , , , , ,

Canada sits at the latitude and longitude of 60 degrees N and 95 degrees W and shows our position in the Northern Hemisphere. Winters can be extremely harsh in the interior and Prairie provinces. We are going to explore this topic and how to stay safe on Canada’s roads during the coldest months with re-examining safe winter driving skills,

Winter weather can vary across the nation. Average temperatures can range anywhere from -5 degrees to -40 degrees. Staying safe usually follows the rule of ‘go outside during the day, head indoors at sunset‘. This is because winter weather can be unpredictable and serious survival skills would be needed if caught outdoors especially with onset of nightfall.

Canadian winter nights can reach extremely cold temperatures

This rule should also be followed by all Owners who drive but there are people who must travel for work. We will explore some tips from others who do have knowledge and lived experience with this type of weather. Remember, your Safety is of utmost importance for you, and your Loved ones.

Safe Winter Driving Tips

Most Canadians know winter brings with it inclement weather that can make driving more challenging … Read more.

6 Tips for Safe Winter Driving

Whether you’re driving in snow for the first time or a seasoned driver looking for a quick refresher, we’ve got some useful winter driving tips for everyone. As conditions differ in each Canadian city, we’ve developed a list of winter driving tips to help safely see you through the coldest season of the year. Read more.

trucks need wide turns -give them room

Driving an EV in Canadian Winter

Driving an electric vehicle in the frigid Canadian winter poses unique challenges that require additional caution for optimal efficiency. Despite the fact that EVs are designed to resist extreme circumstances, those who drive electric vehicles in Canada should follow particular care practices to stay safe during the winter months. Read more.

Essential Travel Tips for a Winter Road Trip in Canada

Navigating icy roads and preparing for colder temperatures require additional planning to ensure a safe and enjoyable journey … Read more.

blizzards are hazardous weather conditions

10 Tools and Tips to Help you Survive Winter on the Road

Well, it’s almost that time of year again, when blizzards begin, all-wheel-drive reigns supreme, and common sense dictates you take a little more care in your driving. But sometimes, even with all the care I know all Driving readers exercise in all conditions, situations arise. Better be prepared for the worst is always a good idea when driving alone at night; doubly so if it’s winter and you’re well off the beaten path … Read more

Emergency Car Kit check list

The Safe Driver

It’s that time of year again when temperatures start to plummet, hoodies and jackets become non-negotiable, and it starts to get dark a bit too early for the liking of most Canadians. Read more.

The Ultimate List of Canada Driving Statistics for 2024


Looking for the latest Canada driving stats and trends? We’ve got you covered. We’ve curated, vetted, and categorized a list of most recent, up-to-date stats below. Each statistic on drivers and their behavior is about Canada except where stated otherwise. Need Ontario-specific stats? Check out these Ontario driving statistics. Read more.

How to Drive Safely in Winter Weather Conditions: Tips for New and Experienced Drivers 2021

Driving during the winter can be challenging. There are a lot of factors you need to be cautious of. Black ice and slippery roads can be dangerous if you are not equipped with the proper driving knowledge and skills. Here are a few tips to help you be better prepared for driving in harsh winter weather conditions. Read more.

vision is difficult driving in blizzard conditions

Ontario car Insurance Rates jump 12% in just over a Year

Ontario’s average estimated auto insurance premium rose 12% in 2023 compared to 2021, according to data from the RATESDOTCA Insuramap, an interactive online map that shows the average insurance rates by postal code. The average estimated premium is currently $1,744, marking the largest increase in the history of the Insuramap survey. Read more.

Free Images by QuoteInspector.com

How much is insurance for a new Driver in Ontario?

If you’re a newly licensed driver in Ontario—first, congratulations. Second, prepare yourself for the cost of car insurance. People often assume that teenage drivers are the most expensive to insure, but the truth is that high insurance rates can affect all new drivers, regardless of age. Inexperience behind the wheel can cost you—but I’ll show you several strategies that can help you save money. Read more.

I hope your driving travels during this particular season are Safe, and do remember that Canada does have FOUR seasons. Winter is only one of them but known for it’s cold temperatures, long nights, short days. It can arrive in late October and last up till April.

A few tips I’ve learned over the years are as follows:

  • ‘Slow down, and Gear down‘
  • It’s always good to think outside of the box when finding oneself on the side of the road. It may just save your life.
  • If stuck in the snow ‘off-roading’ and don’t have Kitty litter for traction, grab your knife or just snap off a couple large branches and tuck it under your tires. Dress warm if you must go outside.
  • Make sure you have back-up communication ability packed with your Car Emergency Kit since Cell phones may not always get a signal.
  • Ask around for an Accident lawyer who’s affordable.


Learning in Motion

Extra Learning Resources

Controlling a Skid

Preliminary 2023 Ontario Road Safety Annual Report selected Statistics

Car Emergency Kit Essentials: Preparedness on the Go

I hope you found this article informative and gained some new insight to update your driving skills. Please feel free to leave your Comments and Share your new found knowledge with others.

Use the ‘Ask A Question’ form to make a request on a topic of interest to you. It is FREE to subscribe to my RSS feed. I hope your Visit again for more interesting articles. Take care, God Bless 🙂

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14 Rules of #Stranger-Danger

Issues in Society, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
public alert for missing children

Personal safety when out and about whether in public, or rural areas requires your attention. Human predators instinctively recognize easy Prey and always seek opportunity.

Parents share the common goal of maintaining the safety of their children including their adult children. So, we must learn and teach the 14 Rules of #Stranger-Danger.

Teach and Learn the 14 Rules of #Stranger-Danger

  • Don’t talk to Strangers, somebody starts talking to you, and not part of the family, is a stranger. LEAVE, and go to a crowded Public place. Strangers may be nice but does not mean they are friends. Don’t open the door when strangers are knocking especially when home alone.
  • Tell family where you are , tell your parents, and sisters or brothers, where they can find you, and stay there, or let them know again, the new place you’re going, and always leave names, addresses, and phone numbers of your friend(s).
  • Learn the Buddy system, learn the importance of safety in numbers. Teach your children to play with groups of friends, and stay together. Try to leave group with a friend who lives near your own house. Allow your child to call their friends to make sure all made it home, safe.
  • Do not meet with Strangers from telephone calls or Internet, teach your child to never meet with a stranger who calls on the phone or from the internet, no matter how urgent they make it sound. Tell your parents and family about the call quickly and write the time, date, what was said.
  • Only Adults can help adults, teach and learn that children can’t help adults. Learn and teach your child it’s okay to say No, and leave. Run to a place of safety.
  • Secret Code Word, create a secret code word or words for parents and children to be used only by a designated Emergency contact person until parents get home.
  • Stay away from Stranger’s car or truck, teach your children to never go near a strangers car, do not get in, do not look inside. Step back and away from reach of a car or truck windows and doors. A child does not have the strength to match an adult.
  • Scream and Yell for help, teach your child to scream and yell if feeling scared with a stranger. Teach the importance of alerting others nearby for help.
  • Avoid empty and dark places, teach your children by showing them empty lots, abandoned buildings, dark forests, and importance to avoid such places especially when alone. Teach how businesses are closed at nights, figure out together how your children can find help.
  • Trust your Instincts, teach your children they are not fools or dumb. Let them know if something doesn’t ‘feel right‘ that’s when it’s time to leave the area and find help or run to a safe place. Teach that it’s ok to call 911 if your children feel unsafe.
  • Teach their friends, teach your child to share, and talk about the rules of #Stranger Danger. Not every child knows of these rules, and your children can help fill this gap by teaching other children. Include teaching them not to choose who should know such lessons. They are helping save lives.
  • Remember Appearance , teach your child to remember face, clothes, color of hair, size, height, car, truck. It would be a traumatic moment but do their best to remember details. Play memory games spur-of-the-moment to build your children’s recall skills.
  • Designate a Trusted Emergency Contact Neighbor or Family, parents should have alternate place of safety for their children available for an Emergency until able to get home. Designate somebody very trusted and familiar to the children.
  • Call the Police, parents should report all incidents to the Police as soon as possible. Your child may be safe but there are other children in your neighborhood. Police will have it on record and also be aware and on the alert.
child plays alone

Shock of Missing and Murdered Children

News about disappearances, abductions, and/or deaths of missing children is heartbreaking to hear, and worse if it occurs in our own town or city. We, as parents can’t be with them every hour of the day.

We can’t always trust schools, police or church to be safe havens any more these days. If we can teach our children these safety rules we at least give them a chance to survive the unknowns of #stranger danger.

I grew up at the time where children were being abducted, and some later found, deceased, others still missing to this day. Stories appeared almost weekly on front pages of newspapers. It was heartbreaking and horrific. For me ending the tween stage at the time the world was getting scary.

My own personal experience as a latch-key teenager was from a telephone call for a photo shoot. My mother arrived home from work early, and in time to stop me from leaving. She later found out after speaking with my school that there was no photo shoot scheduled that day. This is how I would learn about importance of ‘no talking or meeting with strangers. anywhere’.

latch key kids

Street Smart Safety Programs come to First Nations – MMIWG2S and Every Child Matters

I am an Indigenous mother living in a rural First nation (FN) community. I really had to push our community Family and Childrens Services (FACS) worker to bring #Street Smart program for our children in the community.

The worker didn’t understand for the longest time what I was talking about. The name had been changed to #Stranger Danger. Many FN parents were not taught about this information at Residential schools nor in their home communities. Not all schools offered the program for students about the same time as Indigenous students entered mainstream Public schools.

Canada estimates there are about 45, 288 children that go missing each year. A look at the Missing Children’s Statistics at Government of Canada website – Canada’s Missing shows high numbers of females with males a runner-up, under Runaway and Unknown.

Missing and Murdered -Indigenous Women and Children

Today, FN communities are reeling from shock of unmarked grave sites of children at Residential schools.

Mainstream society has a data base of missing children, teens and adults. We have serial child s. Offenders set free from prisons. We do get notified but is that truly enough?

Step up to do More – Early Beginnings

Contact your local Child and Family Services (FACS) office (or whatever their NEW name is these days), your local MP, Provincial and Federal government officials, schools, and Police to keep funding and running these Child Safety programs, in every school; elementary, middle school and high school. Ensure the rules are memorized for life.

A dairy company, Anderson Erickson Dairy in Des Moines, Iowa would inspire a national USA Missing Child photo campaign printed on Milk cartons in the USA which Canada also adopted. Every milk carton would have photo’s and information about a missing child, description, and message to call the police.

Campaign Evolves – Deny services

Milk Carton Missing Child Campaign

Today, we have the Amber Alert though they have been criticized for not being co-operative to send an alert for an Indigenous child in Canada of 2022.

Is this due to indifference or the current open practice of ongoing racism towards BIPOC Canadian citizens? What does that tell you? Should another separate service be started specifically for BIPOC? is this Segregation of services?

Public education can help ensure each new generation are able to teach their own children. We can do our best to strive for safe neighborhoods where our children can be children. What other ideas do you think could help ensure the safety of our children? other peoples children? help BIPOC children?

Learning in Motion I

Alphabet Safety Tips

Learning in Motion II

Teen rescued after use of Universal Hand Signal

Extra Learning Resources

Block Parent Program of Canada, Inc.

Our Neighborhood Watch

Best personal GPS trackers 2022

35 Best Podcasts for Students in Elementary, Middle, and High School

I hope you found this article informative and gained some new insight. Please feel free to leave your comments and Share your new found knowledge with others. Use the ‘Ask A Question’ form to make a request on a topic of your own interest. It is FREE to subscribe to my RSS feed.

AIC| An Informal Cornr, all rights reserved. Ginsense writes articles at AIC|An Informal Cornr about business skills and development, health, science, technology, society and enjoys advocating for independence, security and a better world for all of us. Learn something new 🙂 Tell your Friends! Visit today!

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Trick or Treat -Laws and Canadian Prison Inmates

Issues in Society, , , , , , , ,
inmate prison cells block

Laws in Canada are available across the nation for many Canadians. Laws are created to help keep society operating, and sets down rules for actions and behaviors that are unacceptable and applies consequences. They serve as guidelines for how people can best manage themselves both in private and in public life. Most importantly, to help keep harm from befalling the people. So, what is Trick or Treat – Laws and Canadian prison inmates mean for us?

Laws are created by the government and enforced by police and the Judicial system (Judges, jails, prisons). Citizens are able to go to court to defend themselves with a court-appointed lawyer, or hired lawyer.

A prison sentence can be applied for crimes that fall within the Canadian Criminal code. There are Federal, Provincial and municipal laws, courts and varying levels of consequences. Canadian prisons have a high number of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous People of Color) which should beg the question, why? And what does this say about the government, courts and nation, to accept such obvious differentiation?

Canada is good at creating criminals but not so with rehabilitating inmates to re-enter society with an improved regard for others and self. How does one find hope with such indifference and dehumanizing actions taken upon them?

I’m Indigenous, and would think, I’m NOT safe in this country because I’m colored. Does it seem like the message for the Life of a minority is meaningless in this nation?

Crimes are committed by both genders, men and women, and Youth laws apply to youths since they too have proven that they can commit adult crimes. Outcomes of going through the court system, after age 18 for criminal charges, creates a Criminal record. This record keeps a record of all crimes that a person commits and, becomes a barrier towards finding employment in certain careers. It is permanent. Youth records get sealed but not always.

Tricks

Now, let’s take a peek at those behind bars residing in jail/prisons. A common antic that arises for an inmate nearing his/her release date. One or more inmates will go all out with violence to sabotage and/or cancel outright, the release of another inmate.

Such acts will ensure another criminal charge upon the inmate ready for release. This will prolong his/her stay in jail for another time frame, and until another court day is set for this new charge.

A deliberate physical assault gets initiated against the inmate set for release, and the one initiating the fight will ‘play‘ the role of victim. We’ll assign them as inmate A, ready for release, and inmate B, plans to stop the release.

Jails and prisons may and/or will have two inmates per cell. So, during lockdown the two inmates are in one room. Nobody is looking, staff shortages do not have guards patrolling the cells, and there may be no cameras. Inmate B will not have any witnesses other than maybe one or two cells across the aisle and those inmates may support his claim.

The distance between cells may skew line of sight. Nobody may see inmate B throwing the first punch. They may not see the non-stop attack being done upon inmate A. They may only see the middle-to-end fighting.

payhip advert

Inmate A defending himself from harm and inmate B taking hits willingly even deliberately walking into the return punches. After all, the worst inmate B looks, the worst the jail and courts will see inmate A.

Once this assault has the attention of the prison guards. Inmate B enters his/her role, the victim of a physical assault. Inmate A is immediately removed and put into another prison area designated for the ‘violent’. A serious unpredictable environment literally has inmates in high stress and survival mode. Is this supposed to help ‘rehabilitate‘ inmates too?

Usually, an inmate is moved to a ‘range’ with other inmates soon to be released, and they wait out their time with minimal, if any, problems. Unfortunately, this practice may not be followed nor available.

Office of the Correctional Investigator

Oh yes, I know. This can’t be real! No way, etc, etc. It happens, is happening. I suggest you read one, or more, reports from the Office of the Correctional Investigator –> here to learn about the most recent 2019-2020 report.

The reports are honest and definitely fall within his Mission Statement of investigations and “ serves Canadians and contributes to safe, lawful and humane corrections through independent oversight of the Correctional Service of Canada by providing accessible, impartial and timely investigation of individual and systemic concerns.” I appreciate the honesty, courage, humanity and objectivity of these reports, and glad he can present them to Parliament.

It is greatly alarming to read about Corrections staff permitting harms between inmates, and permission from Superiors, to use ‘techniques‘ requiring brutal physical force upon inmates aka ‘pain compliance techniques‘ for 17 minutes.

Reading this section of the report was quite eye opening, and I have to ask the governments and all parties who ‘create‘ such policies, why allow inflicting such brutality on others? Add to these abhorrent acts done by Corrections staff – there are zero consequences. Nobody takes responsibility nor are charges applied. I do not see how such treatment of inmates helps to ‘rehabilitate‘ them for re-entry into mainstream society.

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Canada has a Constitution Act with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and under Legal Rights, the following says :

Treatment and Punishment

12. Everyone has the Right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.

The policy for ‘Pain compliance‘ has since been changed. No such force is permitted but how long will that last? We saw the effects on inmates of what ‘Segregation‘ does to the human mind. Yet this practice is still ongoing. It just has a new name, Quarantine being one. Inmates still sit in segregation cells for 23 hours and maybe, allowed out for one hour, and time runs out to use the phone for many when they’re forced to return to their cells.

Further into reading the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we will see ;

Application of Charter

27. The Criminal Law, except the Constitution of Courts of Criminal Jurisdiction, but including the Procedure in Criminal Matters.

  • 32 (1) This Charter applies
    • (a) to the Parliament and government of Canada in respect of all matters within the authority of Parliament including all matters relating to the Yukon Territory and Northwest Territories; and
    • (b) to the legislature and government of each province in respect of all matters within the authority of the legislature of each province.

Read a little further into the Constitution Act and we’ll find a division between Federal and Provincial powers and jurisdiction that shows TWO Constitutions;

VI. Distribution of Legislative Powers

Powers of the Parliament

Legislative Authority of Parliament of Canada

28. The Establishment, Maintenance, and Management of Penitentiaries.

Exclusive Powers of Provincial Legislatures

6. The Establishment, Maintenance, and Management of Public and Reformatory Prisons in and for the Province.

7. The Establishment, Maintenance, and Management of Hospitals, Asylums, Charities, and Eleemosynary Institutions in and for the Province, other than Marine Hospitals.

Laws and Inmates

Sleight of hand? Create changes in policies to become law of the land. A method used in Federal and Provincial governments, to skirt accepting responsibility for any wrongdoing. Do you see it? One level of government follows the rules and turns a blind eye on the 2nd level of government allowing brutalities behind bars and near open abuses on the People. Both claim innocence and, ‘its for public safety‘ and neither allowing consequences for such brutalities.

Is this a Proud moment for Canadians?

Is this truly acceptable treatment of prison Inmates?

Do you question the state of mind of government officials who write policy?

Does each ‘erosion‘ of Rights mean LESS Protections for the People?

Should any level of government be allowed to ‘violate’ Constitutional rights of the People with impunity (exempt from punishment)?

Is this how Canada should be governed ?

Is there no ONE and TRUE Constitution now?

Learning in Motion

Reading Resources

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, PDF

What is difference between flawed democracy and full democracy?

10 Awful Canadian Violations of Human Rights

A study gave cash and therapy to men at risk of criminal behavior. 10 years later, the results are in

I hope you found this article informative and gained some new insight. Please feel free to leave your comments and share your new found knowledge with others. Use the ‘Ask A Question’ form to make a request on a topic of your own interest. It is FREE to subscribe by RSS feed.

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