In Canada, Halloween spending accounted for approximately $1.15 billion in sales in 2006. According to the Retail Council of Canada, 68% of Canadians plan to participate in at least one Halloween-related activity this year - going to a party, wearing a costume, handing out candy, taking children trick-or-treating, getting together with friends, and/or decorating their home - and 47% of Canadians plan to purchase or rent Halloween costumes. Sex is the theme for women’s adult costumes. Some of the most popular for women are sexy pirate wenches, Elvira, Wonder Woman, Bettie Page, French Maid, and sexy witches. The most popular men’s costumes have a movie theme - Indiana Jones, the Joker, Sweeny Todd, Anakin Skywalker, and Clone Troopers.

Adults looking for a Toronto Halloween to remember have plenty of choice:

•    Canada’s premier scream park www.screemers.ca will curdle your blood   from October 17 – 19 and again from October 23 – November 1 at the CNE’s Scream Elizabeth Building. Buy your admission tickets if your heart can take it.
•    Enjoy a fabulous floating Halloween party! Halloween Cruises include a devilish 4-hour party, appetizers and snacks, live DJ, dancing, cash bar, costume contest with prizes, and an evening that you’ll be talking about for years to come.

•    The Toronto After Dark Film Festival from October 17 – 24 features new horror, sci-fi, fantasy, action, animated, and cult films from around the world.

•    The Monster Bash for swingers and adventurous couples takes place on October 24th & October 25th at the Solarium at Polson Pier. Appropriate costumes are mandatory.

•    Attend Fashion Cares, the gala fundraiser in support of the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT). This year’s theme is Hitchcock meets Haute Couture.

Who is the Toronto city council working for, the TTC or the people of Toronto? Who is paying the salaries of the city councillors, the people of Toronto or the TTC? The city council’s executive committee has voted against asking the province to declare the TTC an essential service and remove TTC workers’ right to strike by a margin of 8 – 1. It will now go to debate in a full council meeting which is a total waste of time but according to our illustrious mayor, the debate will go on because he promised that it would. Mayor Miller has also made it clear that he disagreed with making the TTC an essential service and removing their right to strike. And, that is no surprise as Miller is a big union supporter.

In spite of the fact that councillors Karen Stintz, Gloria Lindsay-Luby, Cesar Palacio and Cliff Jenkins are in favour of declaring the TTC an essential service, that only amounts to one vote because Gloria Lindsay-Luby is the only one on the executive committee. Four members of the executive committee were too busy to show up for the vote.

The reality is that public transit is an essential service. A recent city report that said each day of a TTC strike costs the city $50 million. If that doesn’t prove “essential” I don’t know what does. Unfortunately we are being dictated to by union bosses who are all legends in their own minds and we have a mayor who panders to them. When is someone going to step up to the plate and do what is right for Torontonians who don’t have a big, bad union to do their bidding for them? All that Torontonians want to do is conduct business as usual and it’s the job of the mayor to make sure that happens.

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of year for families and friends to come together, give thanks, and celebrate. Here are some great Thanksgiving events in Toronto for the whole family to enjoy.

•    Black Creek Pioneer Village:  Make your reservations for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner in their unique, authentic 19th century setting, complete with music and a dramatic reading. Dinner is offered on October 12th and October 13th at 1:30 PM, 3:00 PM and 6:00 PM. Call 416-667-6295 or email bcpved@trca.on.ca for more information.

•    Take a drive and see the fall colours. Check out the Fall Colour Report and enjoy one of the true gifts of nature.

•    Toronto Thanksgiving cruises: Celebrate in a novel way this year and enjoy a Thanksgiving feast out on the water instead. Relax and enjoy on your choice of two Toronto Thanksgiving cruises - Saturday, October 11th, 2008 and Sunday, October 12th, 2008. For an incredible all-inclusive price you will enjoy a scenic 4-hour cruise, reserved seating, a very special Thanksgiving hot buffet dinner featuring delicious traditional selections as well as vegetarian options, live DJ, dancing, and a cash bar. Make your reservations today .

•    Beaches Laughter Club: Have a laugh this Thanksgiving! Relax and unwind with a FREE laughter yoga class on Monday, October 13th at the Beaches Recreation Centre located at 6 Williamson Road. For more information contact Beverley Howell at 416-691-8408 or laughteryoga@sympatico.ca

•    International Home Show: If you can’t get home renovations or decorating off your mind, indulge yourself and visit the International Home Show on October 10th – October 13th at the International Centre located at 6900 Airport Road in Mississauga. Over 450 industry experts and exhibitors will be on hand to answer all of your questions and solve your renovating and decorating dilemmas.

•    The Kortright Centre’s Thanksgiving Harvest Brunch and Dinner: Enjoy a special family Thanksgiving brunch or dinner October 12th. After your delicious meal take a guided hike and warm up with some hot apple cider beside the bonfire. For more information call 416-667-6295.

•    The Salvation Army Thanksgiving Congress “Harvest of Hope”: The Salvation Army invites everyone to join them for a weekend of spiritual renewal and celebration on October 10th – 12th at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Admission is FREE and no pre-registration is required.

Don’t forget that there are many families that are less fortunate than you are and demand at the food banks is at an all time high. Please be generous if you can.

Photo courtesy Flickr

The mantra in the ‘60s was “Big Brother is Watching You”. It appears that Big Brother now is China. Citizen Lab, a Canadian research group based at the University of Toronto, found a database containing over 150,000 messages containing politically sensitive words and topics which had been blocked by China including Falun Gong, Taiwan independence, opposition to the Communist Party, democracy, and Tibet. The Chinese are operating a huge surveillance system which picks up and stores messages sent through the online telephone and text messaging service TOM-Skype, the name by which Skype operates in China. The blocked messages, along with the personal subscriber data are stored on insecure, publicly accessible web servers. This database is totally unprotected and available to anyone. Citizen Lab reports that by using one username, it was possible to identify all the people who had sent messages to or received them from the original user.

TOM-Skype is a joint venture between American eBay and the Chinese wireless operator TOM-Online. According to Skype, it was commonly known that China was monitoring messages containing words that it deemed offensive but that it had been TOM Online’s policy to block certain messages and then delete them. Skype was not aware that messages were being uploaded and stored. In fact according to the report there are 8 servers where data is stored in the surveillance network. There is one dedicated server hosting a special version of TOM-Skype that is used in Internet cafés where lists of censored words, SMS messages, IP addresses, usernames, landline phone numbers, as well as full content of time-stamped filtered messages have been found.

This serious security breach not only affects TOM-Skype users but any Skype users that interacted with registered TOM-Skype users. It will be interested how all of this affects Skype. Certainly they will suffer damage to their reputation and it has to create serious doubt about how secure their network really is. The question that may never be answered is whether or not they willingly helped the Chinese government monitor its people.

I was shocked to read that children’s’ toys with high levels of lead are still being sold in Toronto stores. Although lead has generated the most amount of press in recent years children’s toys have also been found to contain dangerous levels of cadmium, chlorine, arsenic, and mercury. When these potentially toxic substances are not chemically bound to a product they may be released into the air or directly into a child’s body in saliva should the child put the object in his/her mouth. Even small amounts of toxic chemicals can have serious impact on children producing symptoms including prolonged vomiting, diarrhea, a drop in IQ, and possibly death. XRF - X-ray Fluorescence – is the most reliable method used for detecting these toxic chemicals. Its technology allows us to see beneath the surface for the presence of lead and other toxic chemicals.

In case you think that only cheap dollar store items are dangerous or questionable, the results of a recent Toronto Star investigation turned up some alarming results. Of the 18 retailers that they shopped at which ranged from dollar stores to major retailers, their testing showed lead in 25% of the products tested. Most of the products were made in China. Even after the massive recall of Mattel products made in China last year we still haven’t learned our lesson. We are constantly being bombarded with messages of buying local, buying fair trade, and going green. Why aren’t we listening, particularly when it comes to our children?

According to www.healthytoys.org here is a list of 10 toys with the most lead. Here is the list of the safest toys – they have no detected chemicals of concern when exposed to XRF testing.