Alberta's proposed tuition hikes could see increases of almost 60% in some faculties

Alberta is considering letting some post-secondary institutions hike tuition fees to bring some program costs in line with other institutions across the country.

The University of Calgary says it may apply for the tuition hike and the University of Alberta's Faculty of Law announced on Friday that it intends to submit a proposal to the government for an increase in tuition market modifiers. While the school says the tuition hike is needed to keep up with student demands, students say they ought to be consulted first.

"We would like to see, at the very least, a student vote on these market modifiers if proposals do go forward," said Levi Nilson, vice-president external with the University of Calgary students' union. "We think the university should present a strong case as to why they're needed and why they sort of use this legislative loop hole to get around the tuition cap."

Market modifiers to tuition fees were last used in Alberta in 2010.

According to the University of Alberta students' union, some faculties at the school saw tuition rise by more than 66 per cent.

The provincial government legislated in 2006 that tuition cannot rise at a rate higher than inflation, which rose to 2.5 per cent in Alberta in July 2014 compared to July 2013.

However, the current legislation allows for market modifiers as a one-off increase to bring tuition fees in line with other institutions if the school looking to raise tuition can show a clear discrepancy.

If accepted, the proposed increase at the University of Alberta's Faculty of Law would bring annual tuition to $15,995 from the current $10,121 — an increase of 58 per cent.

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'She's been stolen from us,' aunt says at funeral for slain Manitoba girl Tina Fontaine

Family and friends of Tina Fontaine gathered near a Manitoba First Nation on Saturday afternoon to remember the life of the 15-year-old girl whose body was found in the Red River in Winnipeg almost a week ago.

The service for Fontaine, whose body was recovered on Aug. 17, began at the St. Alexander Roman Catholic Church at around 2 p.m. CT and ended two hours later. It was followed by a traditional feast.

The funeral took place in the teen's home community of the Sagkeeng First Nation, which is located about 93 kilometres by road northeast of Winnipeg.

At least 200 people attended the service, including many children and teenagers, the CBC's Jillian Taylor reported from Sagkeeng.

When the presiding priest asked for a moment of personal prayer, the church was silent except for the sound of one person weeping, Taylor said.

Tina Fontaine's body was recovered from the Red River on Aug. 17. Police are investigating the death as a homicide. (CBC)

​Thelma Favel, Fontaine's great-aunt and caregiver, broke down as the girl's casket was carried away at the end of the service.

Fontaine's pallbearers, who include her brothers, cousins and uncles, wore photographs of her on feathers made of burgundy-coloured felt, in a nod to Tina's favourite colour.

"She's been stolen from us," Robyn Fontaine, Tina's aunt, said before the funeral.

"She was just so outgoing and happy, and she had every intent of finishing school and getting her job, and she just wanted the best for her little sister and her brothers."

Fontaine's body was found in a bag that was pulled out of the Red River near the Alexander Docks in Winnipeg.

Police are treating her death as a homicide. No arrests have been announced to date.

Robyn Fontaine, right, says her niece Tina 'just wanted the best for her little sister and her brothers.' (CBC)

Earlier this week, investigators went door to door in Winnipeg's inner city, where Tina was last seen, asking residents if they noticed anything suspicious recently.

The teen had been in foster care at the time she disappeared and was reported missing Aug. 9.

On Friday, members of Fontaine's family made offerings of tobacco around a sacred fire in a special ceremony to honour her.

The fire is meant to represent Tina's spirit, so she can be with her family as they say goodbye.

Calls for national inquiry renewed

Fontaine's death has refocused attention on the still unsolved cases of hundreds of missing or murdered indigenous women and girls in Canada, with many aboriginal rights advocates, politicians and even the Canadian Human Rights Commission demanding a national public inquiry on the issue.

The Conservative government of Stephen Harper, however, has rejected these calls, with Harper saying as recently as this week that the cases are strictly a police matter and do not warrant a wider inquiry.

"We should not view this as a sociological phenomenon. We should view it as crime," Harper said Thursday during a tour of Canada's North.

Other politicians, including Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger, have criticized Harper's view and said the issue needs to be addressed on a national level.

A camp has been set up at Memorial Park in Winnipeg by protesters calling for a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls in Canada. (Stacy Jacques/CBC)

​Meanwhile, protesters have set up tents at Memorial Park, across the street from the Manitoba legislative building in Winnipeg, to renew their calls for a national inquiry.

"Mr. Harper, please, we're losing our children. We're losing our women. There is a phenomenon happening here," Sandy Banman, one of the protesters, said on Saturday.

Organizers of the camp say they plan to keep it going for at least four days, but added that they may stay longer if the issue continues to gain momentum.

Death being reviewed by Children's Advocate

Since Fontaine was under the care of Child and Family Services, her death is automatically being reviewed by Manitoba's Office of the Children's Advocate.

Favel, who said she looked after Tina and her sister for the last 11 years, told CBC News earlier this week that Tina had been struggling with the violent beating death of her father, Eugene Fontaine, in 2011.

Tina recently reconnected with her biological mother, according to her great-aunt who added that Tina had also run away from home in the months prior to her death.

Favel said she last saw Fontaine on July 1, when the teen ran away from Sagkeeng.

Favel knew her great-niece needed help, so she contacted Child and Family Services (CFS) and requested that an agency take custody of Tina.

CFS officials located Tina at some time after July 1 and placed her in foster care in Winnipeg.

Favel has said it wasn't clear when the teen was placed in foster care or when she disappeared. She said she wasn't notified that Tina was missing until she had already been gone for two weeks.

Two days after Favel was told of her disappearance, Tina's body was discovered in a bag in the Red River. Police have not released specific details about how she was found.

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Winnie the Pooh saga turns 100 years old today

One hundred years ago today a Canadian soldier adopted a black bear cub and named it after his adopted hometown of Winnipeg, launching the saga of Winnie the Pooh.

Lt. Harry Colebourn, a Canadian veterinarian and soldier with the Royal Canadian Army Veterinary Corps, came across the orphaned female bear cub on Aug. 24, 1914.

"It's such a fascinating story to me that something from such a different, ancient time and far away is so directly connected to this city of ours," said Mary Anne Appleby, a Winnipeg author who penned the 2011 biography Winnie the Bear.

As the story goes, when Colebourn's troop train stopped in White River, Ont., he met a hunter who had shot and killed the bear cub's mother, without whom the cub was almost certain to die.

Colebourn offered the hunter $20 for the cub, whom he named Winnipeg Bear to commemorate the city where he had lived before the war. The name was soon shortened to Winnie.

Winnie accompanied Colebourn to England, where the cub played with Canadian soldiers during their off-hours in their encampment on the Salisbury Plains.

Colebourn later donated Winnie to the London Zoo, where the bear inspired the creation of A.A. Milne's famous children's book character. Winnie died at the zoo in 1934.

The Winnie the Pooh story endures a century later. A survey in the United Kingdom named Milne's book the most beloved children's book of the past 150 years, while the "silly old bear" came in second to Anne of Green Gables' Anne Shirley in CBC Books' Great Canadian Character Showdown.

Appleby, whose father was a close friend of Colebourn's son, says this weekend is a time to celebrate a wee bear that has become a household name.

"I just want to try and get this story out there as much as I can because I think, you know, in Winnipeg we're quite familiar with it. The rest of Canada doesn't know it as well," she said.

Appleby said in conducting her research, she came across a rare short video of Winnie eating an orange at the London Zoo.

Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park is home to the Pooh Gallery, which houses a permanent collection of Winnie the Pooh artifacts and memorabilia.

Featured prominently in the gallery is the painting Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Pot by E.H. Shepard, the original illustrator of Milne's series.

Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, viewed the painting during their visit to Winnipeg in May.

A bronze statue of Colebourn and Winnie is located at the park's Nature Playground.

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Parliament has not properly debated assisted suicide: Tory MP

Conservative MP Steven Fletcher says the issue of assisted suicide, again in the spotlight following the death of a B.C. woman with dementia, has never been properly debated in Parliament, despite what the justice minister claims.

And it's an issue that the Manitoba MP, who has introduced two private member's bills on doctor assisted suicide, says continues to gain support, including among his political allies and party colleagues.

"It's more than people would surmise, including members of cabinet," Fletcher said, adding that he believes his proposed bills would have an excellent chance of passing second reading and move to the justice committee. 

The issue made headlines recently after Gillian Bennett, who was diagnosed with dementia three years ago, killed herself by ingesting drugs. Before her death, she had posted on her blog explaining why she was ending her life, saying she feared she would become a burden on her family and did not want to spend "an indefinite number of years of being a vegetable in a hospital setting." Bennett also hoped to reopen the debate about assisted suicide in Canada.

In a statement, Justice Minister Peter MacKay offered his condolences to the family of Bennett, adding that "assisted suicide is an emotional and divisive issue for many Canadians."

"It is our government's position that the Criminal Code provisions prohibiting assisted suicide and euthanasia are in place to protect all persons, including those who are most vulnerable in our society," he said.  "Furthermore, in April 2010, a large majority of parliamentarians voted not to change these laws, which is an expression of democratic will on this topic."

MacKay was referring to a private member's bill supporting assisted suicide for those seriously ill that had been introduced in 2009 by former Bloc Québécois MP Francine Lalonde, who died of bone cancer earlier this year. 

But Fletcher believes that bill was easily defeated because it was poorly worded (even Fletcher abstained), and didn't get into the complexities of the issue. It was also at a disadvantage since federalist parties are often not keen to support a bill coming from the Bloc, he said.

"I would say that Parliament has actually not had a debate on this issue," he said.

One of Fletcher's two bills would, if passed, allow doctors to help people end their lives under certain restricted circumstances. According to the proposed bill, the individual would have to have been diagnosed by a doctor as having "an illness, a disease or disability (including disability arising from traumatic injury) that causes physical or psychological suffering that is intolerable to that person and that cannot be alleviated by any medical treatment acceptable to that person."

Or, "the person must be in a state of weakening capacities with no chance of improvement."

The person must also be of "sound mind," meaning someone like Bennett may not be able to get assistance.

"The challenge with that particular case deals around the mental competency of the individual," Fletcher said. "So was she of competent mind when she took her action? I don't know those details but my legislation isn't going to address every issue."

Fletcher's second bill, if passed would set up a commission to monitor the system. 

Fletcher's bills, introduced in March, come as a number of high-profile cases continue to push the issue into the spotlight.

Earlier this week, the Canadian Medical Association appeared to soften its stance on physician assisted suicide, voting overwhelmingly in favour of an advisory resolution that supports "the right of all physicians, within the bonds of existing legislation, to follow their conscience when deciding whether to provide so-called medical aid in dying."

Meanwhile, in June, Quebec's National Assembly passed Bill 52, also known as an act respecting end-of-life care, which would allow a doctor who has been given the consent of the patient to administer medication to cause death.

And, perhaps most significantly, in January, the Supreme Court of Canada agreed to hear an appeal by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) who are seeking to allow seriously and incurably ill but mentally competent adults the right to receive medical assistance to hasten death under specific safeguards.  

This means the case could be taken out of the hands of politicians, a situation Fletcher would find regrettable.

"Wouldn't it be great if the elected representatives in Canada proactively acted on something that was in front of the Supreme Court, rather than the Supreme Court of unelected judges tell Parliament what to do?"

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Where to 3D print cool stuff yourself

Every day, it seems, there is more cool stuff that you can 3D print — from wedding cake toppers based on a 3D scan of you and your betrothed to replicas of fossils in museums to personalized iPhone cases — if only you had a 3D printer. And who does?

Toronto Public Library users can choose from a variety of different colours of plastic in which to 3D print their projects. (Emily Chung/CBC)

Not many people, but publicly accessible 3D printers are popping up all over the country, at places ranging from libraries to makerspaces to small businesses that liken themselves to internet cafés for 3D printing.

It's not just libraries in big centres like Edmonton, Toronto and Ottawa that are offering 3D printing now, but even smaller communities like Sudbury and Kitchener, Ont., and towns right across Nova Scotia, from Yarmouth to Sydney.

Ab Velasco, who helped set up the Digital Innovation Hub at the Toronto Reference Library that includes 3D printers, said it's just a continuation of what libraries have always done.

"Libraries were one of first places to offer free access to computers, internet, wifi… and so offering access to other new emerging technologies — it's just a natural fit," said Velasco.

Personalized chess set, TV mount

Mike Ross is co-ordinator for the program that offers access to a 3D printer at the Colchester-East Hants Public Library in Truro, N.S. Since the printer was installed in 2012, people have printed all kinds of things from a personalized chess set based on the Magic: The Gathering card game to parts to repair a dishwasher or mount a TV, he said. The City of Truro has even used it to print out waterproof cases to protect devices designed to provide the town with public wireless internet access.

Mike Harvie checks the progress on his print job at the Toronto Public Library. (Emily Chung/CBC)

Alex Lai, digital design technician at the Fort York Branch of the Toronto Public Library, said nameplates and jewelry have been popular with library users. One couple even scanned themselves holding hands using the library's 3D scanner and printed out a custom cake topper for their upcoming wedding.

Since the Toronto Public Library started providing access to its 3D printers in February, there have been huge waiting lists for the 60-minute certification "class" that library users have to take before getting access to the 3D printers.

Mike Harvie is one Toronto library user keen to take advantage of his new access to 3D printing. On a sunny August morning, he came into the Fort York branch of the library with a file he downloaded from the popular website Thingiverse, eager to 3D print an object for the very first time. Thingiverse offers free printable 3D models of objects ranging from toys to jewelry to home decor.

It took about an hour to print the bottom half of the Raspberry Pi case on the library's Makerbot 3D printer. (Emily Chung/CBC)

Harvie said he's interested in having access to the printer in case something small gets broken around the house and he needs a spare part.

But he wanted to do a test project first – "to see the texture and sturdiness of it," he explained.

He considered making a toy for his two-year-old son, but changed his mind and decided to make something for himself — a case for his smartphone-sized Raspberry Pi computer.

Lai was on hand to help Harvie out.

He asked Harvie to pick what colour plastic to use. He chose red. They then discussed which way up it should print to minimize the amount of time and plastic and therefore the cost. Because the entire project would take longer than the two-hour time limit, they decided to start with the bottom half of the case and print the top half another time.

Then, with a push of a button, the print job started.

Curious onlookers

As the print head of the microwave-oven-sized MakerBot printer moved back and forth, squirting out red plastic layer by layer, half a dozen other library users popped by for a look.

A couple recently used the 3D scanner at the Toronto Public Library to scan themselves and then 3D printed the model to use as a caketopper for their upcoming wedding. (Emily Chung/CBC)

"Oh wow, that's amazing," said Nomi Drory, an art teacher and designer who had never seen a 3D printer before. She was quick to ask about how she could sign up for a library workshop.

An hour later, Harvie was invited to peel his case off the tray with a spatula.

"I think it's going to work out pretty good," he said as he examined it.

In addition to casual users printing knick-knacks, at the library entrepreneurs and engineering students have created prototypes of devices such as smart watches for a fraction of the price that it would cost to print commercially. The library charges just $1 per print job plus 5 cents a minute.

Both Ross and Velasco say they have a wide range of users, from kids to seniors.

"We definitely have a lot of people who are newcomers to technology, who have never seen a 3D printer before," Velasco said. "Because we're the library, generally we are a space for everybody… there's less of an intimidation level to use the technology."

New makerspaces opening

Unfortunately, not every community has a 3D printer in their library yet. But in many of those communities, the public can still get access to 3D printers at clubs called hackerspaces or makerspaces, which exist in most major cities across the country.

Mike Harvie holds up his first 3D-printed creation - a case for his Raspberry Pi computer - which was printed at the Fort York Branch of the Toronto Public Library. (Emily Chung/CBC)

Some brand new ones providing access to 3D printers have opened up in the past few months, including the Saint John Makerspace in New Brunswick, Yukonstruct in Whitehorse and Vancouver MakerLabs.

"Part of it is just the access to the technology is becoming more affordable," said Derek Gaw, cofounder of MakerLabs.

Using a makerspace is more expensive than using 3D printers at the library — MakerLabs, which is for-profit, charges $100 per month. Non-profit makerspaces such as Regina's Crashbanglabs and Calgary's Protospace charge as little as $30 and $50 a month respectively.

But for that price, members typically get access not just to 3D printers, but often a wide range of other equipment, such as laser and plasma cutters, said Ben Eadie, who is on the board of directors for the Protospace hacker space in Calgary: "You could literally build a vehicle from scratch in that place."

Many members are also very experienced with different kinds of equipment.

"The people in the library can't necessarily help you out to the same level that Protospace can," he said. He added that the club has a variety of members, some as young as nine years old, and he encourages anyone interested in 3D printing to come in and try it.

'Internet café for 3D printers'

Finally, for those who want to avoid the commitment of a club and the waiting lists of the library, there are a few other options, such as Toronto's MakeLab.

MakerLabs' essentially acts as a showroom their 3D printer, which is on loan from a 3D Systems distributor. (MakerLabs)

"It's essentially like an internet café for 3D printers," said Jonathan Moneta, creative lead for the business that offers 3D printing workshops and one-on-one training, as well as assistance with preparing models for 3D printing.

"You can really just stop in, take a short training course and then parachute in whenever you need to use the 3D printer."

He said the facility is popular with entrepreneurs, partly because they can use multiple 3D printers at once to test different versions of an object.

On the other end, MakeLab's couples' workshops are popular on date nights and kids who drag their parents in to print out physical versions of things they built in the video game Minecraft.

Other companies that primarily serve businesses sometimes also offer workshops for the general public, including Toronto's Hot Pop Factory. It has hosted special events like a "3D printed kissing booth" where participants were encouraged to scan themselves while kissing and print out a model.

With so many options, just about anyone should be able to try 3D printing for the first time. It's just a matter of figuring out what to print and where. For some ideas, check out our photo gallery.

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Hail-busting pilots in Alberta see 2nd busiest cloud-seeding season in 20 years

Fighting hailstorms in Alberta is getting a whole lot busier, according to the people behind the Alberta Hail Suppression Project, which uses planes to fly into storms and seed clouds in order to lessen the damage caused by hail. 

The insurance industry pays $3 million a year to lessen the impact of hailstorms by seeding clouds where storms are brewing, with the hope that it will result in fewer and less expensive insurance claims for hail-related damage.

The pilots who fly the cloud-seeding planes say this has been their second busiest season in nearly two decades.    

Cloud-seeding efforts in Alberta, which are supported by the insurance industry, have pilots flying into storm cells and spraying silver iodide. (CBC)

The project is run out of the Didsbury airport in central Alberta and employs pilots like Jody Fischer. His job is to fly straight into storm cells and shoot flares containing silver iodide, which shrinks the ice stones, making them more likely to melt before they hit the ground.

"It's kind of like being in a dogfight," said Fisher.

Experts say hailstorms in southern Alberta are happening more often and are getting more intense. 

"We know we can't eliminate the hail," said project director Terry Krauss. "What we are actually trying to do is make more ice crystals, or snowflakes or small hail, and most of that melts on the way to the ground."

Krauss says the program is working despite storms like the one that hit Airdrie just a few weeks ago.

"Our radar data shows a definite decrease in the intensity after we seeded," he said.

Insurance claims are piling up in the wake of this month's severe weather, but Krauss says without the cloud seeding, Albertans would see up to 40 per cent more damage from summer hailstorms.

Krauss says often all their planes are out in the skies seeding, and so far this year, they have fought 92 hailstorms. 

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Andrew Wiggins trade nearly official, Canadian will be rare top pick traded

The wait is almost over.

The blockbuster trade that will send Kevin Love to team up with LeBron James in Cleveland will be completed on Saturday, making the Cavaliers an instant favourite in the Eastern Conference and turning Andrew Wiggins into something of an anomaly.

When Wiggins is moved from the Cavs to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the deal, he will become just the second No. 1 overall draft pick to be traded without playing a game for the team that drafted him since the ABA and NBA merged in 1976.

The only other time it happened was in 1993 when the Orlando Magic traded Chris Webber to the Golden State Warriors for a package headlined by Penny Hardaway.

The Timberwolves will also get Anthony Bennett, the 2013 No. 1 pick, from Cleveland and veteran forward Thaddeus Young from Philadelphia in the three-team deal. The Sixers will get Miami's 2015 first-round pick from the Cavaliers and guard Alexey Shved and forward Luc Mbah a Moute from the Timberwolves in the trade, which cannot be announced until Saturday due to a seldom-used NBA rule that prevents draft picks from being traded until 30 days after they sign their rookie contracts.

The Webber-Hardaway trade occurred on draft night, allowing both players and both teams involved to leave the venue that night with a clear picture of their respective futures.

Wiggins, on the other hand, has endured a much longer, more awkward process. He suited up for the Cavaliers at the Las Vegas summer league even as the rumours of his trade started to swirl. As the summer dragged on, the 19-year-old Canadian who spent one year at the University of Kansas even wore the Cleveland colours in a rookie photo shoot at the start of August.

Through it all, he side-stepped questions about where he was headed and steadfastly maintained the rumours didn't bother him.

"Anywhere, any team," he said earlier this month when asked about it at a promotional appearance. "I can play anywhere."

But Jayhawks coach Bill Self said that he thinks Wiggins has used the Cavaliers' decision to trade him as fuel.

"I think he's handled everything great. He's excited," Self said at a basketball camp earlier this month. "I think the whole thing that's been blown out of proportion a bit is that he's been in limbo. He's known since the summer that he'd be traded. It's OK. In some ways he's looking forward to going to Minnesota."

The vast majority of top picks since the merger either have never been traded or were shipped out after spending at least four seasons with the team that drafted them.

Bennett, the No. 1 overall pick in 2013 who is headed from Cleveland to Minnesota with Wiggins, is unique in his own right in getting traded after just one year with the team that drafted him. He joins Pervis Ellison, who was traded from Sacramento to Washington after his rookie season in 1990, and Webber, who was traded from Golden State to Washington after one year, as the only No. 1s to be dealt that quickly.

That speaks to how highly the Cavaliers, and James in particular, think of Love. His versatility, shot-making, outlet passing and rebounding prowess will be a perfect fit for the James-led Cavaliers, just as it was when the two teamed up at the London Olympics with Team USA.

Love spent his first six seasons in Minnesota and has yet to make the playoffs. That lack of success caused him to inform management this summer that he intended to opt out of his contract next July and sign with a contender, so the Wolves started to entertain offers.

The Cavaliers jumped into the mix right after James decided to return home and shot to the top of the list of suitors when they decided to make Wiggins, a super-athletic, 6-foot-8 forward, available.

Now that he is coming to Minnesota with the added motivation of being an outlier is just icing on the cake in the Wolves' eyes.

They see two young players with the talent that made them No. 1 picks and the motivation to show the Cavaliers they shouldn't have given up on them this quickly, even if they were getting a three-time All-Star and one of the best offensive players in return.

"When all this trade stuff started, I talked to Andrew and Andrew told me, 'I hope I get traded,"' Self said. "And I'm like, 'No you don't.' And he said, "Coach, I do. It's better for me, knowing my personality and what I need to do, to go somewhere where I'm forced to be something as opposed to going in there where they're going to be patient with me and I'm going to be a piece."

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Family prepares for slain Manitoba teen's funeral on Saturday

Tina Fontaine's family is preparing to say their final goodbyes to the 15-year-old girl who was found dead in the Red River in Winnipeg last weekend.

Police believe the young aboriginal woman was killed.

On Saturday, her family is holding a funeral for her in her home community of Sagkeeng First Nation.

A photo of slain teen Tina Fontaine sits atop her casket in a family home on Sagkeeng First Nation. Thelma Favel, Tina's great aunt and guardian, said this has been the worst week of her life. (Jillian Taylor/CBC)

Thelma Favel, the girl's great aunt and guardian, said this has been the worst week of her life.

"I can't even hold her, hold her hand. I can't touch her little pretty face just to say goodbye," said Favel.

On Friday, the family made offerings of tobacco around a sacred fire in a special ceremony to honour Tina.

The fire is meant to represent Tina's spirit, so she can be with her family as they say goodbye.

Guardian last saw teen in July

Favel raised Tina for 11 years and last saw her on July 1.

"She was awesome. That's not the Tina I see in the papers. That's not the Tina I ever, ever knew," said Favel.

The teen had gone to Winnipeg to visit her estranged mother.

Favel said Tina had been acting out in the months before she disappeared and wouldn't come home. Favel knew she needed help, so she contacted Child and Family Services (CFS) and requested that they take custody of Tina.

Tina was placed in foster care in Winnipeg about a month before she was found dead.

"Even though she was in the system for that short little time, it didn't take long for her to fall through the cracks," said Favel.

Tina still struggling to deal with father's violent death

Favel said she wasn't notified that Tina was missing until she had already been gone for two weeks.

Two days after Favel was told of her disappearancer, Tina's body was found in a bag in the Red River.

Favel said she isn't blaming CFS but just wants to know what happened to Tina.

"I just want them to know when people phone for help, they really need help," she said. "They don't phone for nothing."

Noella Fontaine, Tina's grandmother, said her family had asked CFS to get counselling for Tina but that never happened.

Tina was still dealing with the violent beating death of her father three years earlier.

"She didn't grieve for him when we had the body. She didn't show no emotions. She was just holding it in," said Fontaine.

The death of the Winnipeg teen has also refocused attention on the still unsolved cases of hundreds of missing or murdered aboriginal women in Canada, with many First Nations communities and women's and aboriginal rights advocates, including the Canadian Human Rights Commission, calling for a national public inquiry.

The government of Stephen Harper, however, has rejected these calls, with Harper saying as recently as this week that the cases are strictly a police matter and do not warrant a wider inquiry.

"We should not view this as a sociological phenomenon. We should view it as crime," Harper said Thursday during a tour of Canada's North.

Other politicians, including Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger, have criticized this view and said the issue needs to be addressed on a national level.

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Beyond condemnation: How has Canada joined the fight in Iraq?

As attacks and atrocities from extremist group ISIS mount in Iraq, Canada's political leaders have all offered strong words of condemnation.

Speaking to reporters in Whitehorse on Thursday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper described ISIS's tactics as  "unspeakable barbarism."

"The desire to essentially commit genocide against any group of people in the region who are different, these are shocking developments," the prime minister said.

"It's a deplorable situation," Opposition Leader Tom Mulcair said during an event in Amherstburg, Ont., "and I think that Canada should continue to work with our allies."

Canada is in "ongoing contact" with its allies, as official government tweets and other statements repeat, and "together, we will be announcing additional steps that we will be able to take with them in the days ahead."  

But what steps?

Humanitarian assistance

"What I think Canada needs to do, most important in terms of changing the dynamics, is to provide humanitarian aid now, because it's needed now — not weeks from now or months from now — it's needed right now for people who are suffering and have been the victims of barbaric acts," New Democrat Peter Julian said Thursday on CBC News Network's Power and Politics.

"I think Canada could do much more," he said.

RELATED:

On Aug. 10, International Development Minister Christian Paradis announced a $5 million contribution to aid organizations already established in Iraq. Of that, $2.25 million was to be "immediately allocated." 

The remaining $2.75 million would be spent after "consultations" with the government's "partners in Iraq." Two weeks on, no additional information has been available from the government.

That announcement brought to $16 million the amount of Canadian assistance to Iraq since the start of 2014: $6.8 million focused on "victims of civil unrest" and $9.5 million for programs to refugees from the continuing conflict in Syria who had fled to neighbouring Iraq. 

(In comparison: Since January 2012, Canada has spent $353.5 million on humanitarian assistance in response to the conflict in Syria.)

Support for refugees

Julian also criticized Canada's slow response on the refugee front.

"We've certainly seen with both the Syrian conflict and in Iraq an opportunity for Canada to accept more refugees, and that has been slow in terms of the numbers of people who could actually come and re-establish themselves here in Canada."

On Tuesday, Immigration Minister Chris Alexander said Canada was "at the forefront" of efforts to help refugees, reminding reporters that since 2009 Canada has resettled more than 18,000 Iraqis, many of them religious minorities.

"That's a record that speaks for itself," Alexander said. "We're going to resettle 5,000 more Iraqi and Iranian refugees who are now in Turkey in the months and years to come."

But Canada's commitment to resettle roughly 20,000 Iraqi refugees, particularly those from the Christian minority, predates the current conflict.

Resettlement work was complicated and delayed with the closure of Canada's visa offices in Syria in 2012. The office had been central for processing Iraqi refugee applications, as many had fled to Syria.

Military intervention

Canada's only military deployment so far was announced on Aug. 15: two transport aircraft to move military supplies donated by other countries to Kurdish military forces in northern Iraq, involving 30 Canadian personnel.

No statement by any government official has suggested the Canadian military will do more. Other allies, most notably the Americans, have re-engaged with airstrikes against ISIS.

Liberal MP John McKay, speaking on the same Power & Politics panel as Julian, didn't rule out his support for more military involvement.

"It would certainly have to be given very serious consideration because this is in effect an attack on the very core notions of what civilization means," he said, calling the crisis on the ground "an almost a genocidal situation" where people are being "persecuted, killed and mutilated on the basis of what they believe."

"Any civilized nation, any nation that calls itself civilized, has to address that situation and cannot leave it unaddressed. So I think that's what in effect makes you pause very carefully to think about what this might involve," he said.

Mulcair told reporters he expected Harper to follow the "longstanding tradition in Canada" that before you put boots on the ground, you have to go back to Parliament." 

The House of Commons does not reconvene until Sept.15.

Diplomatic efforts and security concerns

Does the world take notice when Canada condemns ISIS?

Derek Burney, a former diplomat and chief of staff for Brian Mulroney who's co-authored a new book on Canadian foreign policy, Brave New Canada, told the CBC this week he doesn't think so.

'We do tend to exaggerate the extent to which Canada is either an honest broker or a significant player.'- Derek Burney, former diplomat

"We do tend to exaggerate the extent to which Canada is either an honest broker or a significant player in the Middle East," he said, pointing out that Canada doesn't really have substantial interests in the region.

"Let's face it: even the United States, with its enormous capacity for influence in the Middle East, is not exactly front and centre influencing events, either in Israel or in Syria certainly or in Iraq," Burney said.

Nevertheless, Canada's Ambassador to Jordan, who is also responsible for the Canadian mission in Iraq, was in Northern Iraq last week to meet with Kurdish officials.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird tweeted a photo of Bruno Saccomani visiting a battalion on the front lines in Nineveh.

While Saccomani was busy on the ground, Baird's ambassador for religious freedom, Andrew Bennett, called this week for other Muslim countries in the region, including important trading partners of Canada's, to use their considerable influence to stem the violence.

"[Countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or Qatar] may become victims themselves if they don't stop these people out there," Baird's parliamentary secretary Deepak Obhrai said this week.

'Strong influence'

"They have quite a strong influence in the Muslim world and their voice would add quite a bit of clout to the international condemnation," Obhrai said. "It would be helpful if these countries took a stronger stand."

"I think [the Canadian government] should also use whatever contacts they have left in Tehran — which I don't think they have — to again call out the [Iranians] to support a notion of pluralism," McKay added.  (Canada ended diplomatic relations with Iran in 2012.)

"Unless the leading powers of that region actually start to approach the notion that pluralism is a meaningful concept — that people have an absolute right to believe and to act in the way they believe — then this will continue to happen over and over again," McKay said.

Canada is not alone among western countries in the struggle to stop ISIS recruitment at home, when the citizens travel to places such as Iraq and Syria and join extremist forces.

"The risk is real and that is why we have to have proper resources within Canada to track that sort of thing," Mulcair said.

"This is a radicalization that seems to be taking place and it is not a single point source there seems to be several sources for it, so I don't think any country can consider itself completely immune."

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New PTSD diagnosis changes could tax resources, CF member says

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a very personal affliction.

It is a normal reaction to an abnormal event, and no two people are affected the same way.

A couple years ago, I was busying myself around the house, completing the normal, mundane chores everyone has to attend to from time to time. During my chores I often tune in to CBC Radio to keep some ambient sound in the background.

One particular day, a program came on during which a soldier suffering PTSD from an incident in Afghanistan shared his story.

I went about my chores half-listening to the radio when suddenly his description of events caught my attention.

I stopped what I was doing and turned up the volume. As his story unfolded I realized that I had been present at the very event he described: a tense standoff with a group of Afghan warriors that could have escalated to violence but was in the end resolved peacefully.

During his narrative the soldier began to cry. He shared with the audience the fear he had endured at the time, the recurring nightmares he had experienced afterwards, the stress this event had put on his marriage and his subsequent difficulties with the military bureaucracy.

What struck me most was that, despite being present at the event, I had not experienced any mental health challenges relating to it, nor have I to this day.

To be sure, this was an extremely tense situation. During a speech to a school group in my hometown, after I returned from Afghanistan, I was asked if I ever felt my life was in danger.

I replied that, during my tour in Afghanistan, there were two specific times I genuinely feared for my life, and this particular event was one of them.

But despite the fear I experienced, I suffered no nightmares, no panic attacks.

I'm not for a moment suggesting that I am built of sterner stuff than my colleague. No two people react to the same event in the same way. Nor am I suggesting my colleague was not genuinely suffering from PTSD. This just serves to demonstrate that PTSD is a difficult disorder to both diagnose and treat.

Recent changes in how PTSD is diagnosed, however, may do more harm than good.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is the guide book for psychiatrists and how they treat people with mental health issues.

The latest version of this book, DSM 5, was released in May 2013, and its guidance for the diagnosis of PTSD varies sharply from the previous version, DSM4. 

According to the American Psychiatric Association, the most profound change between the two versions as far is PTSD is concerned, is the criterion for a traumatic event.

DSM 4 requires the traumatic event to have been either personally experienced or witnessed. DSM5, however, has broadened the criteria to include learning that a traumatic event has happened to a family member or close friend.

I certainly do not have the qualifications to compare with the learned members of the APA who have seen fit to broaden the criteria of a traumatic event.

Nevertheless, in my layman's mind, I do have reservations.

The problem I see is that PTSD may become far too broadly diagnosed.

I am not for a moment advocating that those who require mental help assistance should not receive it. Quite the contrary, my concern is that when something becomes so broadly interpreted, how can we ensure the proper resources go to those who most deserve them?

It is unfortunate to say there will be those who will use this broader definition to acquire undeserved benefits, which will in turn divert those resources from where they really need to go. Fortunately, they are in the minority.

In the military, those abusing the system are readily identified by the rank and file. Soldiers have their own criteria for what qualifies for PTSD.

This, of course, has problems of its own, as peer pressure can discourage those needing help from seeking it.

Fortunately, some excellent leadership in the Canadian Forces and a marked increase in mental health awareness have fostered a broader and more inclusive view of PTSD amongst the Canadian military.

Nonetheless, when troops who need help observe an abuse of the system, it tragically deters them from seeking the help they need, fearing to be considered a malingerer.

There's no easy answer to the problem of PTSD. Like physical wounds, it is an injury and requires treatment as such, but finite resources spread too thin will, in the long run, hurt more people than they help.

David Grebstad of Etobicoke, Ont., is an amateur historian and serving member of the Canadian Armed Forces. His opinions do not necessarily reflect official Department of National Defence or Canadian Forces policy.

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