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Protesters make their point…Thousands of Lower Mainland residents took to the streets on the weekend to protest the budget tightening initiatives being carried out by the provincial government. Extra-parliamentary protest is a crucial part of democracy, says SFU labour historian Mark Leier, noting that demonstrations are the beginning, not the end, of popular protest and participation. "Such rallies show people how they can fight back and inspire them to take the initiative in creating their own forms of protest and action, he says, noting that people will always find ways to "spit in the soup" to make their point. "If the government chooses not to listen, that in itself will indicate something important about the premier and the Liberal party, and the protest will have served to make that lesson clear." Leier says other forms of protest are inevitable and can look at how the masses have reacted to unpopular government actions in the past.

Mark Leier, 604.291.5827, mark_leier@sfu.ca


Boomers won’t bust the bank…The looming retirement of millions of baby boomers has younger taxpayers wondering if there will be anything left in the public purse when their retirement rolls around. Lillian Zimmerman, a research associate at SFU’s gerontology centre, says the prevailing fear that aged Canadians are about to overtax the nation’s health care system, is overblown. This year’s John K. Friesen conference, organized by Zimmerman and her colleagues, will separate fact from fiction about the impact of Canada’s swelling senior population on health care and the economy. The two-day gerontology conference, Boomers Come of Retirement Age: What are the Prospects?, takes place June 6-7 at SFU’s Harbour Centre campus. Zimmerman can elaborate on topics, including strategies used internationally to make health care and pensions sustainable and manageable in the face of mass retirement. The conference will also feature a discussion on the media’s alleged bias towards covering studies that support a crisis view of retiring baby boomers.

Lillian, Zimmerman, 604.291.5206; 604.291.3300; lzimmerm@sfu.ca


Doctors’ dispute ‘a compelling irony’… "Premier Gordon Campbell’s government should be careful what it wishes for," says Tom Koch, a medical ethicist and adjunct professor of gerontology at SFU. He notes the old adage is borne out by the way the dispute between BC. doctors and the government is unfolding. Doctors are voluntary participants in a professional association, not members of a binding union contract, he notes. Thus, the government can’t legislate an end to their dispute, as it has done with unionized teachers, nurses and health care workers. Koch finds this "painfully" ironic. He says the present government has always touted contracting out as a way of freeing up the labour logjams created by unionized groups exercising their right to strike. "Perhaps the government will, with the resolution of this conflict, find a new appreciation for collective bargaining," says Koch. "At least they’ll have discovered that independent contractors are less malleable than union workers are."

Tom Koch, 604.714.0348; 415.788.1234 Hyatt Regency, San Francisco (Tues-Sat. 8-9 a.m.); tokoch@attglobal.net