That’s because Hibernia – one of the world’s largest drilling platforms, weighing over a million tonnes – is located in one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet, rife with high waves, fog and violent storms. The disaster would push cleanup crews to the absolute limit; plugging the leak might be nearly impossible.

Are we prepared? Hardly. Most Canadians still don’t see Canada as an oil-producing nation, even though this country is the seventh-largest producer of crude oil in the world: We produce 2.8 million barrels a day, a number that is expected to grow to 4.3 million barrels a day by 2025.

As a result of this perception, many are clueless about the risky oil exploration and production activities occurring here every day. And without the drama of a catastrophe or heartbreaking images of oil-covered birds, it’s all too easy for Canadians to remain blissfully unaware.

I know this because until recently, I was one of those Canadians. I consider myself an environmentalist, but also a realist. I recycle and turn off lights, and I drive a car and eat processed food. I understand that we can’t live without oil – at least not right now. Furthermore, as a researcher studying disasters, vulnerability and risk at 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Environmental Studies, I thought I was fairly informed about the risks stemming from offshore drilling.

But travelling around New Orleans after last year’s Deepwater Horizon explosion exposed me to the impact that spills can have on land, people and wildlife. It wasn’t pretty, and it inspired me to dig deeper into the dangers back home. What I discovered scared me.

Between 1999 and 2009 there were 156 oil spills (totalling over 2,600 barrels) off the coast of Newfoundland. The Terra Nova platform, 350 kilometres southeast of St. John’s, was responsible for 36 of them, including an incidence of equipment malfunction in 2004 that led to Canada’s worst offshore oil spill to date—1,000 barrels of oil gushed into the Atlantic Ocean, with high waves and bad weather impeding cleanup.

. . .

Let’s be frank. Clean energy solutions that would reduce our dependence on oil are still a ways away. But being realistic means recognizing that short of imposing a moratorium on offshore drilling (not a bad idea), we need to ensure that our technologies, teams and training are tough enough to prevent a Deepwater Horizon-style spill from happening in Canada.

And at the moment, they’re not.

Gulliver's complete article is available on .

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post PhD student Tanya Gulliver: Can Canada handle a Gulf-style oil disaster? appeared first on Research & Innovation.

De Val is studying traditional Gaelic songs and aiming to foster an awareness of the language while also contributing to its preservation. A key part of this new project is research into prominent figures such as Frances Tolmie and Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, who collected hundreds of Gaelic songs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of them dating back to a much earlier period.

To assist her research, de Val has been studying Scots Gaelic since 2006, wryly noting how its grammatical structure and distinctive spelling and pronunciation make it challenging to learn. The number of those who are fluent in Gaelic are beginning to dwindle, though schools such as Sabhal Mòr Ostaig in Skye and St. Anne’s Gaelic College in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, do much to promote the language and culture; de Val has studied at both.

The connection between Scotland and the Eastern Canadian provinces is of particular interest to de Val. These historical connections have also inspired a number of 91��ɫ’s music students to learn more about Gaelic culture, song and dance. De Val hopes to build the Music Department’s Celtic program by integrating various artistic practices in both studies and studio settings.

Currently, de Val is planning a research trip to the archives in Scotland and Halifax that house artifacts related to Gaelic culture. She is particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of visiting Tolmie and Kennedy-Fraser’s archives at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh, where she will begin sifting through an extensive collection of field notes, film clips and other research-related artifacts.

Inspired by the work of contemporary Irish composer Michael McGlynn, de Val aims to combine research and practice in the Gaelic Song Project by including compositional and performance components. She will be using her creative skills to arrange selected songs for various combinations of harp and chorus. She also looks forward to working with her daughter Susanna McCleary, who plays the fiddle and sings in Gaelic, and singer Catherine-Ann MacPhee from Ottawa. Together they plan to make the music come alive.

Reprinted from the March 2011 issue of Fine Arts Research Newsletter, by Suzanne Jaeger, Fine Arts research officer, and Dan Vena, 91��ɫ theatre student

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Music Professor Dorothy de Val aims to preserve Gaelic songs appeared first on Research & Innovation.

At the Oil: Slick Suits and Sinister Scenarios symposium tomorrow, leading researchers in risk, disaster management, ethics and the environment will provide insights into the murky world of oil and the need to prepare for a potential disaster.

The symposium will take place, from noon to 2pm, in the Crowe Room, 109 Atkinson Building, Keele campus. Everyone is welcome.

91��ɫ law, governance and ethics Professor Mark Schwartz (right) will discuss the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, which caused the largest off shore spill in the history of the United States. Schwartz will present an ethical critique of BP and speak about the importance of ethical crisis management and the lessons for Canadian oil producers.

Environmental studies Professor Gail Fraser (left) will compare the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico and its estimated impacts on marine birds to that of a much smaller spill in offshore Newfoundland. She will argue that cumulatively smaller, more frequent oil spills off the coast of Newfoundland have likely resulted in higher seabird mortalities compared to the very large single spill in the Gulf of Mexico, because oil breaks down more slowly in cold water and the species composition is different.

Fraser underscores the importance of having baseline data to estimate the impact of oil spills and discusses current challenges in NL regarding access to information relevant to oil spills.

Emergency management Professor Ali Asgary will examine the Canadian emergency preparedness and response capacities and gaps in dealing with large-scale oil spills. He is co-investigator of a recently completed project, “Real-time Detection of Oil Spills”, funded by the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada, which developed an expert system for rapid risk assessment of pipeline based oil and gas spills to be used by emergency response teams.

Right: Ali Asgary

Asgary's areas of research include disaster and emergency response, business continuity, development and applications of geographic information systems and agent-based modelling in disaster and emergency management.

Fraser’s research focuses on issues around the ecology and management of avian wildlife, and the environmental management of the extractive industries of oil and gas.

Schwartz is co-author of the textbook Business Ethics: Readings and Cases in Corporate Morality (McGraw Hill, 2000) and the author of Corporate Social Responsibility: An Ethical Approach (Broadview Press, 2011).

Joanne Jones, a professor of audit and management information systems in 91��ɫ’s School of Administrative Studies, will moderate the discussion.

The event is presented by the School of Administrative Studies in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.

For more information, call ext. 20091 or e-mail tarawlo@yorku.ca. To register online, visit 91��ɫ’s School of Administrative Studies website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Leading researchers discuss BP oil spill and potential for Canadian oil disasters March 9 appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Meanwhile, as governments keep talking, operators continue to use the controversial section to block access to information.

Gail Fraser, a biologist and professor in the [Faculty of Environmental Studies] at 91��ɫ  in Toronto, placed five access to information requests in 2007 with the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, a joint federal-provincial body that regulates oil and gas drilling and production off the Newfoundland coast. The board cited the same section of the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act to deny all five requests: Section 119(2).

But Fraser said she wasn’t asking for proprietary information, just environmental data about the frequency of oil sheens, for instance, and other pollutant information so she could compare the environmental effects predicted in the environmental assessments of oil production operations  to what’s actually happening. “The government is permitting oil and gas operators to operate in a public domain. And the waste involved in these developments is huge. And so it’s important for the public to understand what are the effects of those wastes. And so, you can’t,” she said in a phone interview with The Hill Times.

“Right now, the public is essentially in the dark as to the effects of oil development in the Grand Banks (off the Newfoundland coast).”

While there is obviously information that would make sense from a business perspective to not release publicly, said Fraser, she would like to see Section 119(2) scrapped and revised so that it is not applied to environmental and safety information. The Newfoundland and Nova Scotia boards have written to the federal and provincial ministers responsible for energy to ask them to review the section in Atlantic Accords, something Fraser welcomed.

Meanwhile, Fraser submitted another set of access to information requests to the Newfoundland board earlier this month and said she’s not hopeful she’ll get what she wants.

The complete article is available on for a fee or to existing subscribers.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Professor Gail Fraser: Canadian public in dark on effects of oil development off Grand Banks appeared first on Research & Innovation.

[The documents] include plans for Chevron Canada as it drills the country's deepest exploration well in 2,600 metres of water, about 425 kilometres northeast of St. John's.

Critics have raised concerns that Chevron only projected how an oil slick originating on the surface would spread. There were no such models done for a deepsea blowout such as the April 20 explosion on a BP rig in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 workers and spewed up to 700 million litres of crude into the sea.

Biologist and researcher Gail Fraser of 91��ɫ in Toronto is among those calling for better regulation and updated oil spill plans from offshore operators.

The repeated failure of efforts to cap the gusher in the Gulf exposed the limits of existing technology, she said. “I think Canadians really need to consider what is the worst-case scenario and ask themselves, ‘Is that tolerable? Are we willing to put up with that?’ Because we’ve seen now what the worst-case scenario is in the Gulf of Mexico.

“We really need to be thinking very hard and asking our governments: Are we doing our best at protecting ocean ecosystems? I would say we’re not even close.”

Fraser, a professor in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Environmental Studies, also spoke about the concerns over deepsea oil spills, on radio stations in Belleville,Ont.; Saskatoon, Sask.; and Gander and St. John’s, Nfld. July 26. She has been a vocal of Chevron Canada's plans for several months.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Prof Gail Fraser raises new concerns for Canada's oceans after seeing Chevron's uncensored oil spill plans appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Those questions and more are at the heart of , a new collection of essays edited by 91��ɫ history Professor Myra Rutherdale published this spring by McGill-Queen’s University Press.

The book examines the crucial role women have played in health and medicine as nurses and midwives, particularly in the remote geographical areas that dominate Canada’s landscape. As the book's editor, Rutherdale assembled a national contingent of scholars from nursing, women’s studies, geography, native studies and history to supply the essays and anecdotes that are contained within its pages. The result is a comprehensive volume that provides insight and understanding into the two centuries of history and courage of the women working on the front lines of health care and medicine in Canada’s remote communities.

"I was inspired to gather these works together into one collection because I was made aware that there were many scholars working on the history of outpost nursing and midwivery in rural Canada," says Rutherdale. "It struck me that there would be common themes across the country and across the two centuries explored in this book. Most particularly I thought that the perspective of ‘the periphery’ would be useful to explore."

"Were these women, especially the trained nurses, acting as agents of the state or in the best interests of agencies like the Red Cross? To what extent were they actually autonomous?" asks Rutherdale. "And, were they merely reinforcing the sometimes racist and social inequities that seemed to be part of many of the federal government schemes?"

Left: Myra Rutherdale

"Did they, for example, work with midwives from northern communities, and how did they respond to medical traditions which were already established in the communities before their arrival? What motivated these women nurses and midwives to take up their work in the first place?" notes Rutherdale. "Were they just looking for adventure or were they women who wanted to advance in their chosen careers?"

The essays contained in the book also explore themes of religion, colonialism, social divisions and native-newcomer relations. Special attention is paid by Rutherdale to nursing in Aboriginal communities and the relations of race to medical work, particularly in connection to ideas of British ethnicity and conceptualized meanings of whiteness.

Rutherdale looks at the experience of nurses in Newfoundland and Labrador, northern Saskatchewan, northern British Columbia and the Arctic. The book features essays on topics such as Mennonite midwives in Western Canada, missionary nurses and Aboriginal nursing assistants in the Yukon.

"There were many interesting submissions and several fascinating stories. The Mennonite midwives explored [in an essay] by University of Waterloo history Professor Marlene Epp were especially interesting since they were so integral to the communities in which they worked. Not only were they midwives but they also worked as undertakers and arranged bodies for funeral rites," says Rutherdale.

Right: A nursing station in Iqaluit

What she discovered in compiling the book was that creativity was a key attribute for the women profiled within Caregiving on the Periphery. "The midwives and nurses who worked on the periphery had to work often alone, or sometimes with just one partner, and they had to work quickly to ensure the survival of their patients," says Rutherdale. "They did not necessarily have the opportunity to consult doctors or to speak with teams. They had to do their best under some harsh circumstances. They had to be skilled and confident in themselves. Nurses were trained ‘not to diagnose,’ but they often found themselves having to do just that, and quickly. They were tested in these communities and had to work hard."

That quality of creativity was also a key element for some of the research that went into the book, says Rutherdale, as there were challenges associated with the fact that some of the nurses, midwives and patients did not leave detailed primary source material. "As is evident from this collection, there are some very innovative ways to get around this frustrating lack of evidence," says Rutherdale. She cites an article by Judith Young, professor emerita of nursing at the University of Toronto. "One example of this is the excellent article by Judith Young who researched midwives in 19th-century Toronto. She used directories and land purchase records as well as other official documents to trace the existence of these fascinating midwives – records that might not be turned to for the questions which she ultimately answered. Sometimes one has to be innovative and creative to find traces of the human past."

Rutherdale also drew on the creativity of her 19-year-old son when she was seeking an appropriate title for the book. "I always find titles rather challenging. I had several titles, most of which were not favoured by family, colleagues or publishers," says Rutherdale. "Finally, I hashed it out with my son who has two parents who are historians so he has heard his fair share about Canadian history throughout his life. He thought Caregiving on the Periphery made a lot of sense given what the authors were trying to highlight in their collective works. And how does one disagree with an opinionated 19-year-old?"

Above: Donalda McKillop Copeland with her interpreter and his friends, Southampton Island, early 1950s. Rutherdale is researching the experiences of McKillop Copeland.

Rutherdale teaches Canadian history, with a special focus on 20th-century Canada and native-newcomer relations in the Department of History in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. She also teaches courses on the history of the body and Canadian women's history.

Her current research project is on the history of the introduction of westernized medicine into northern Aboriginal communities. "I look at the history of traditional medicine and ask what changes took place when doctors and nurses moved to northern communities to establish nursing stations and small hospitals," she says. "Northern Canada is still woefully under-served in terms of access to health care and there are many inequities that still exist in northern communities. The infant mortality rate is high, and women are still being sent to the south to deliver their children. This is ridiculous in 2010."

Caregiving on the Periphery is available online through , and .

By Jenny Pitt-Clark, YFile editor

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Professor Myra Rutherdale's new book examines women's role in health and medicine appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The head of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board has stressed that environmental protection is a top goal. But Gail Fraser, a professor in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Environmental Studies, points out that the board members’ online biographies cite little or no related background. “They don’t have anybody on the board with environmental expertise that has voting capacity,” she said from Toronto. “They’re supposed to be regulating the environment.”

One of the six board members describes earning an unspecified science degree before joining the Newfoundland public service in 1969.

“None of them would know a good research design if it hit them in the head,” said Fraser, who is studying federal offshore regulations.

Fraser is a biologist . The complete article is .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Professor Gail Fraser: Offshore oil board members lack environmental expertise appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Canada’s East Coast is now the only region in North America where oil companies can continue to drill deepwater exploration wells after President Barack Obama last week ordered the industry to suspend such operations in the Gulf of Mexico, pending a review of the BP disaster.

Gail Fraser, a biologist in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Environmental Studies , said she worries an accident like the one that has confounded BP would gush into the North Atlantic for months, killing sea birds, fish and marine mammals.

She argued that Chevron should be required to begin drilling a relief well even as it proceeds with the primary exploration well – though the industry argues such an approach would be both risky and prohibitively expensive.

“You can damage a lot of populations in a couple of months,” she said. “Is there going to be anything left alive in the Gulf of Mexico?”

Fraser also spoke about changes at the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board in the wake of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, on CBC Radio St. John’s, Nfld., June 2.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Professor Gail Fraser argues relief wells should be dug now for Newfoundland & Labrador's deepwater drilling projects appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Scientists and environmentalists argue that the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (CNLOPB) suffers the same conflicts of interest that have afflicted the US regulator.

“The regulator has all this expertise for developing and promoting oil and gas but also is mandated to protect the environment,” said Gail Fraser, a professor of ecology and biology in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Environmental Studies who is studying Canada’s offshore regulations. “I think there’s more than a conflict of interest.”

Fraser said the board lacks transparency on industry waste and spills into the ocean, and is too cozy with industry, running land sales as well as regulating offshore drilling.

The complete article is available on . The story was also carried on .

Fraser's long-term research projects include long-term monitoring of Manx Shearwaters and Leach’s Storm Petrels, wildlife management and aspects of avian ecology in Toronto’s urban waterfront and the environmental effects offshore oil and gas.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Professor Gail Fraser comments on conflict of interest in Canada's offshore oil and gas regulations appeared first on Research & Innovation.