Chapter Two

"Kids 'n' Crime report tell how to prevent it," The Province, A6 News, Mon Oct 20 06

In a report recently published by the Vancouver Board of Trade titled Kids 'n' Crime, the bulk of the teens involved in crime were found to have 6 factors in common: poor nutrition, learning disablilites, parents with poor parenting skills, drug use, below average reading skills, and are easily infuenced by peer pressure. Also listed are factors that are believed to cause street youth: poor family communication, "friends" who are street youth or involved in the sex trade, and drug use. The majority of these factors are preventable and are relatively inexpensive compared to intervention programs. However, the general public tends to negatively view street youth and are more focused on intervention rather then prevention. Therefore, according to Kids 'n' Crime money is going into the wrong programs. Studies estimate that every $1 spent on the prevention of criminal youth will save $17 for every person in the future through intervention programs.

This goes against the demand and supply theory that price drives the demand and supply curves. It can be assumed, now that the public knows prevention programs are less expensive in the long run, that they will put more money into these programs. That is not the case because of the negative view the public has on teens, many private donors view street youth as "gangsters" and many of them have an irrational fear of working with youth. As a result there is a high demand for prevention programs from crisis youth and their parents while the supply of funds is relatively low.

Time and time again everyone stresses the importance of education, but does education really work? After all, every year ICBC spends money on preventing drunk driving by youth though presentations but the number one killer of teens is still the car accident. The theory behind prevention programs is really good, but how many teens will it actually reach? Will the street youth of Vancouver really listen to what these people say in these presentations? If they really do work then how come the number one killer of youth is still car accidents?

Chapter One

"Universities try to shut out Maclean's," The Province, A24 News, Tuesday Oct 31 06

The 22 universities of Canada are refusing to cooperate with Maclean's magazine's quest for information to publish their 2007 edition of university rankings. The universities are unhappy with the rankings and feels that they "magnifies small differences." Canada's post-secondary institution have also complained that processing this information has become costly (the University of Toronto states the sum of $45 000). In response Maclean has issued "access-to-information" requests that the universities have to oblige by provincial law to complete, however, they are now able to charge a service fee for this information. Half the universities replied by procrastination and by posting student information on their websites. The other half (presumably the top ranked) quietly gave up the information. Since Maclean was unable to win the fight by their issue publication date they were forced to use data that "fluctuates little from year to year."

It is apparent that Maclean is suddenly finding information a scare resource for their magazine. It is also apparent that, with the new service fee, Maclean will find that information has suddenly become a very expensive commodity (remember U of T's $45 000). In addition to that, with the universities being so uncooperative, they will make no effort to lower the service charge for the magazine. Therefore the economic principal that states that when a desired resource becomes scarce (which according to economics all resources are) then the price of the resource goes up until the declining demand (because of the higher price) equals the limited supply.

It seems to me that in the end Maclean will be able to get the information they need. Not only can Maclean's magazine appeal to provincial information commissioners for the release of information because of freedom-of-informaion laws but they have more to lose then the universities do. Can you imagine what will happen to Maclean's magazine's profit margin if they are no longer about to gain the information for their "most well-read and profitable issue?"