Rommel will Post It Forward

Want to know how we, Canadians, are doing online? Here's the latest 2009 survey report from Statistics Canada.

• 80% (7% increase from 2007) of Canadians aged 16 and older, or 21.7 million people, used the Internet for personal reasons.
• Rates of Internet use were highest at 85% in both British Columbia and Alberta, followed by 81% in Ontario.
• Highest rates of Internet use in metropolitan areas were in Calgary and Saskatoon, both at 89%. They were followed by Edmonton, Ottawa–Gatineau, Vancouver and Victoria, at around 86% each.
• 81% are men and 80% are women who used the Internet in 2009.
• Of those online, 96% surfs online from home, 42% from work, 21% from schools and 15% from libraries.
• 55% (49% in 2007) were online for five hours or more during a typical week.
• 65% (54% in 2007) of all Canadians reported using the Internet for five or more years.
• Canadians who had used the Internet for five or more years were less likely to be concerned about online security than those with fewer years of online experience. 
• E-mail was still the most common online activity from home. 

• Searching for health information online was reported by 70% (59% in 2007) of home users.

Thanks for the link, Michelle!

Read the interesting background story on this 122-year-old building and watch the slideshow to see how they are transforming it to a place for creative professionals.

It was a tough decision to leave The Spec,” Estok said. “I feel pretty lucky about my time here. I’m proud of some of the things that we’ve accomplished. We tried hard as a team to keep  ‘Hamilton’  in The Hamilton Spectator. I think we’ve worked hard to represent the community. We’ve also done some high-quality, outstanding journalism.

Good luck on your endeavors, Mr. David Estok!

Hasbro Canada has issued a news release to announce that they are launching a new Canadian edition of the Monopoly board game. Instead of the traditional properties such as Illinois Avenue and Pacific Place, Monopoly will reprint the new edition with Canadian city names. Sixty-five cities have been pre-selected to compete in an online voting challenge.

Burlington is not listed as one of the pre-selected cities, however, voters can nominate our city as a “wild card” city. Two spaces on the board will be reserved for cities that are nominated through a wild card vote, which means any city in Canada can be nominated for these property spaces. Once the top 20 city vote is complete, the top 10 nominated wild card cities will also be put to a vote from Feb. 8 to Feb. 21, 2010.

Nominate and cast your vote at monopolyvote.ca.

Two Canadian researchers developed the technology for electronic board games. Read more on this story here.

Did you know that Toronto's Hard Rock Cafe was the second one built? It was established on June 23, 1978. Read more of Toronto's Hard Rock Cafe here.

Who says politicians have no sense of humour?

I haven't been following the American Idol lately but the audition is still my favourite part of the show. Thanks, Alison, for this link.

Thomas James "T.J." Burke BA LLB QC is a New Brunswick lawyer and politician.

The Ontario force says its account (at twitter.com/OPP_News ) will include news releases and other messages.