Tag: Canada

Breaking News Kids News

High Park Residents Unite To Rebuild “Castle”

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People in the community of High Park in Toronto have come together to rebuild a special playground there.

On March 17, an early-morning blaze destroyed a section of the castle-like wooden playground in the park.

Police and fire officials are investigating to find out the cause of the fire.

In the meantime, local residents and business owners are already actively planning and raising funds to rebuild the one-of-a-kind structure.

The Jamie Bell Adventure Playground, where the “castle” was, is in High Park, just north of Lake Ontario in Toronto.

It opened in 1999 and is named after a Toronto resident whose idea it was to build the unique playground.

Members of the community are pulling together again to rebuild the portions damaged by the fire.

And it’s not just local residents who have offered to assist; Canadian Tire has pledged a significant donation towards the project.

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Breaking News Kids News

Toronto Librarians On Strike But Kids’ Website Stays Open

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Toronto’s 98 libraries are temporarily closed after talks between representatives for the City of Toronto and the library workers’ union broke down last Sunday.

Last Monday, 2,300 library workers set up picket lines at libraries. A picket line, in this case, is where the library workers march with signs that tell the public what they want from the City of Toronto, which pays their salary. Picketing is a way of letting people know that a deal needs to be made before they will go back to work.

What do both sides want?
Library workers are looking for job security*, especially for part-time workers. Part-timers want the city to let them work more hours during the week, says Maureen O’Reilly, president of the Toronto Library Workers Union. The City wants workers to be part-time because it cannot pay full-time salaries.

The deadline for a deal has come and gone four times but the two parties cannot agree on how to settle their differences. The library workers decided that a strike was the only option left for them.

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Breaking News News Politics

The Robo-Call Scandal Continues

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The robo-call scandal is not going away. In fact, it’s getting bigger.

During the last federal election, many Canadian voters said they received automatic voice-mail messages (robo-calls) directing them to the wrong polling station.

CBC News is reporting that they have found voters across Canada who say they got misleading robo-call messages because they were not voting for the Conservative Party.

In other words, according to CBC News, people who weren’t voting Conservative were called and directed to the wrong polling station. (If people can’t find their polling station – the place where they vote – then they may not be able to vote, or they may decide it’s too much of a hassle to find the right polling station.)

This points the finger for the robo-calls at the Conservative Party and Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

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Sports

Toronto Impresses In Its Biggest Soccer Game Ever

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It was arguably the biggest soccer game in Canadian history.

Certainly it was the biggest and most exciting game the Toronto soccer team, Toronto FC, had ever played.

Last night, Toronto FC played LA Galaxy, which has superstar midfielder, David Beckham (#23) on its team.

Beckham is not just one of the world’s best soccer players; he’s also a world-famous celebrity.

The teams met to play a quarter-final match in the CONCACAF Champions League, which is a tournament featuring teams from North America, Central America and the Caribbean.

It was the first time a Canadian team had been in the CONCACAF playoffs.

Image on this page: Ryan Johnson, Toronto FC; Image courtesy of TorontoFC.ca.

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News Politics

Protests and Accusations – The “Robo-Call” Scandal Continues

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Canadians marched through the streets of Vancouver last Saturday to protest the use of misleading “robo-calls” during the federal election last May.

More than 31,000 people have complained to Elections Canada about the automatic voice-mails they received, directing them to go to the wrong polling station to vote.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says that his party had nothing to do with the robo-calls.

Representatives from the Liberals and the NDP have urged the people responsible to come forward.

The Liberals and NDP have also denied having anything to do with the potentially illegal calls.

Many Canadians want to know who placed the calls, and they want the party responsible for them to be held accountable.

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Kids News Technology

New Video Game Helps Kids With Autism

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An amazing new “video game” is helping kids with autism show their emotions in their facial expressions.

Autism affects the brain’s development of social and communication skills.

People with autism typically have difficulty recognizing facial expressions and emotions.

The new video game, called FaceMaze, was developed to help kids with autism recognize what certain emotions look like, and what they mean—for instance, smiling, frowning or looking sad.

The video game looks and plays a lot like Pac-Man, a popular video game from the 1980s.

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Breaking News News Politics

Two Canadian Political Parties In Hot Water Over Use Of Technology

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During elections, people often get a recorded message on their telephone that reminds them to vote and tells them where to go, to vote.

These messages, which use pre-recorded voices, are known as robo-calls.

Canada’s federal Conservative party is being accused of using robo-calls to mislead the public, during last year’s election.

The RCMP and Elections Canada (the group that makes the rules for elections), are looking into accusations that some robo-calls steered voters to the wrong polling station, or to polling stations that didn’t even exist, which would be illegal.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he doesn’t know anything about the illegal robo-calls.

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News Politics

Syria’s “New Constitution” Ignites Further Conflict

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Syria is a country in the Middle East.

Many Syrians have been protesting against its government, which has been accused of doing terrible things to its own people.

The leader of Syria is President Bashar al-Assad.

The fighting between the Syrian government and its opponents this year has been intense and very violent.

Many Syrians want al-Assad to step down as leader. They want to be able to elect a new leader. (Bashar al-Assad’s family has ruled Syria for more than 40 years.)

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News Politics

Head Of TTC Fired; Toronto Council Divided About Transit

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The head of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) was fired from his job this week.

Most people think it’s because he disagreed with Toronto’s mayor’s plans for public transit.

In this case, public transit refers to the city’s system of buses, subways and streetcars.

Gary Webster has worked at the TTC since 1986; for nearly six years he has been the TTC’s Chief General Manager.

As the head of the TTC, part of Webster’s job was to advise Toronto’s politicians about how the city’s transit system should operate.

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News

Dramatic Rescue In Pacific Ocean For Three Canadians

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Nine-year-old West James was sailing to Hawaii with his father, Brad, and his uncle, Mitchell last week.

The boy had permission from his mother and teacher to take the trip if he documented (wrote about) the voyage.

The three were in the Pacific Ocean on their way to Mexico when they ran into a series of squalls, sudden storms with high winds and waves.

The storms flooded the sailboat’s engine and damaged their boat’s mast. They tried to rig a new sail, but it blew away.

When Mitchell James tried to fix the mast, he fell into the cold, choppy water. The others got him back in the boat but they feared he had a concussion (head injury).

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