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Canada still on high alert…More than six months after the U.S. terrorist attacks, Canada is still in a high state of security alert, according to the head of CSIS. SFU political science professor Douglas Ross is not surprised but says more should be done, particularly around the nation’s ports. "The arrival of FBI agents to 'assist' at various ports is noteworthy — but it would have been far more appropriate if they had brought some advanced radiation detection equipment or big X ray machines for dealing with the still 98 per cent of uninspected cargo containers entering the country," he says. He further suggests that Ottawa clean up ports by such means as replacing all employees with criminal records, purchasing equipment to detect chemical and biological agents, and expanding inspection staff. "Federal authorities would also be well advised to allocate money for a program to manufacture vaccines for smallpox in Canada (as U.S. sources are taking a long time for delivery), prepare for aggressive anthrax attack mitigation, and create trained, rapidly deployable and fully vaccinated medical teams, able to move into quarantined urban areas to treat victims. Building up the army reserves across the country so that they could establish quarantine zones would also be a timely initiative." He adds: "Given the penny pinching, naive and mostly isolationist attitudes in government, it’s not likely to happen — until there's a nasty attack somewhere in North America or Western Europe — by which time it may be too late to contain the damage."

Douglas Ross, 604.291.4782; douglas_ross@sfu.ca


Conviction for teen bullying… A guilty verdict has been handed down in a landmark teen bullying trial to one of two teens accused of criminal harassment. The charges followed the suicide of a Mission teen, whose suicide note said she was living in fear because of threats from girls. The convicted teen is yet to be sentenced. SFU criminology professor Ray Corrado, who is watching the case, can look at violent behavior in teens and current research efforts underway to find ways to curb it. He can also look at the Young Offenders Act as well as the new Youth Criminal Justice Act, and how acts like bullying should be dealt with. Corrado heads a study that has involved carrying out interviews with 700 seriously violent young offenders who have served time in prison. Follow-up interviews are tracking how and why they wind up re-offending.

Ray Corrado, 604.291.3629; raymond_corrado@sfu.ca


Students post findings on 2010 Olympic bid…What began as a class project last fall by a group of SFU students, who carried out research on the Vancouver-Whistler 2010 Olympic bid, is attracting the attention of many interest groups. In particular, it focused on transportation issues related to the bid, in particular, the problems posed by the existing Sea-to-Sky highway that would connect spectators to the games. Carried out under the direction of SFU geography professor Mark Roseland, the study also looks at rail transportation, marine travel, goods movement and marketing. Students also examined the challenge of making the games a model of sustainable community development, one of the new requirements of the Olympic bid committee. Students also examined the issues surrounding two proposed athletes’ villages in Southeast False Creek and Whistler. A summary report of the research is now complete and can be viewed on their website.

Mark Roseland, 604.291.4161; roseland@sfu.ca (roseland@sfu.ca)
Brett Lloyd (student), 604.836.5101; bal@sfu.ca