Press Release - TD Canada Trust
Academics and Advocacy earn 20 students one of Canada's top scholarships worth $60,000
TD Canada Trust Scholarship for Community Leadership program recognizes outstanding Canadian youth
TORONTO, May 12, 2006 /CNW/ - Fighting child poverty and exploitation, speaking out for human rights issues and founding the first-ever student film festival are just a few of the accomplishments of 20 extraordinary high-school students awarded the TD Canada Trust Scholarship for Community Leadership. The scholarship program, one of Canada's most prestigious, celebrates community leadership and academic excellence. The 20 homegrown heroes were recognized at a ceremony today in Toronto for their outstanding accomplishments in communities across Canada and on the global stage.
Selected by a jury of prominent Canadian Senators, business professionals and past winners, the 2006 scholarship winners - all graduating high-school students - receive full post-secondary tuition, $5,000 a year toward living expenses and an offer of summer employment at TD Canada Trust for up to four years - a total value of up to $60,000 each.
"These exceptional young men and women are Canada's future leaders," says Tim Hockey, Co-Chair, TD Canada Trust. "Their initiative, commitment and dedication have and will continue to make a real difference to our
communities. TD is proud to recognize these students and support their continued studies, career development and community involvement."
TD Canada Trust will donate more than $1 million to the scholarship recipients, part of its commitment to youth education that will total more than $2.5 million in 2006.
Demonstrating a passion for issues of local, national and global concern, achievements of the 2006 recipients include chairing a United Nations (UN)student conference on human rights, fighting child poverty, tackling self esteem among female teenagers, founding Canada's first student-produced film festival and creating an AIDS awareness team - all while demonstrating consistent academic excellence. Selected from more than 3500 applicants, the winners hail from British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
"These individuals serve as an inspiration to us all, and demonstrate the real difference perseverance, determination and action can make in a community," said June Callwood, renowned author, journalist, and social activist, and the keynote speaker at the awards presentation. "They are a shining example of the difference one person can make - regardless of age."
A complete list of recipients can be found at
www.tdcanadatrust.com/scholarship. Some of this year's
exceptional achievements include:
Namrata Jhamb of Burnaby, BC, who after realizing that
desensitization and lack of awareness are major contributors to the spread of
HIV/AIDS, created the AIDS Awareness Team at her school. Namrata was recently
asked by the United Nations to chair an international student conference in
New York on "Water as a Human Right."
Riley Georgsen of Hanna, AB, created a voice for community youth by co-founding the Hanna Youth Council, a program that works to increase the respect and opinions of youth, strengthen the relationships between the adults and youth of the community, and promote civic pride through youth-driven activities and programs.
Elena Allen-Lukawiecki of Saskatoon, SK, founded the human rights club at her school, working to raise awareness about human rights and social injustices. She also co-founded the Saskatoon Women's Youth Group, a city-wide network and support group for high-school students that works to better girls' self-confidence and interest in women's issues.
Mario Dupont of Powerview, MB, established lunch-hour fiddle lessons for students in grades one to five. Mario has received the National Mtis Youth Role Model Award and the Manitoba Aboriginal Youth Achievement Award for Artistic Performance for his fiddling and is dedicated to sharing his passion so that future generations will enjoy this unique aspect of the Mtis culture.
Jason Apostolopoulos of Thornhill, ON, co-founded OneChild, an
organization fighting the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Jason produced and wrote an in-flight video warning against child sex tourism, which is currently broadcast on all of Air Canada's international flights. Jason is also a founding member of the Youth Speakers' Bureau and facilitated youth leadership programs in Canada, the United States, and Mexico for Leaders.
Philippe Lapointe of Montral, QC, founded the fair trade group "Mundo Equidad" after an eye-opening trip to the Dominican Republic. The group has been very successful at encouraging campus stores and food outlets to offer fair trade products. Philippe is also the national co-coordinator of the Canadian Student Fair Trade.
Selected from more than 3,500 applications, regional judging panels interviewed a shortlist of 63 finalists to choose the 2006 winners, led by the scholarship program's Executive Director Dr. Jane Thompson.
The 2006 judges included Bryan Tisdall, President and CEO of Science World; Peter MacKinnon, President & Vice-Chancellor, University of Saskatchewan; Ruth Ramsden-Wood, President, United Way, Calgary & Area; Journalist & Community Activist June Callwood; Senator, the Honourable Donald H. Oliver, QC; Senator, the Honourable Landon Pearson; Dr. Miriam Rossi, Chair, Board of Trustees, Harry Jerome Scholarship Fund; Charlotte Teeple, Executive Director, The Canadian Children's Book Centre; Julie Toskan-Casale, Executive Director, Toskan Foundation; Louis Larivire, Director of Development, HEC; Dr. Stephen Toope, President, Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation; Dr. Gail Dinter-Gottlieb, President & Vice-Chancellor, Acadia University; Brian Tabor, QC, President, Canadian Bar Association; Senator, the Honourable Marilyn Trenholme Counsell; and former TD Scholarship winners Oscar Miklos (2004), James Montgomery (2003), Debbie Yam (2003), Audrey Langlois (2003), Nana Yanful (2003) and Mary Ann Merchant (2002).
About the TD Canada Trust Scholarship for Community Leadership Program
The TD Canada Trust Scholarship for Community Leadership is open to all students in their final year of high school, and who will be attending post-secondary school during the following year. Applications for 2007 will be available as of September 1, 2006 at TD Canada Trust branches, high school and CEGEP guidance offices and online at www.tdcanadatrust.com/scholarship .
About TD Bank Financial Group Community Giving
TD Bank Financial Group is committed to supporting education and literacy in Canada. In addition to the TD Summer Reading Club and TVO Reading Rangers, TD Bank Financial Group sponsors TD Canadian Children's Book Week and the TD Canada Trust Scholarships for Outstanding Community Leadership. TDBFG also supports a variety of local, regional and national programs across Canada, promoting health, education and the environment.
For further information: to arrange an interview: Argyle Rowland
Communications on behalf of TDBFG, (416) 968-7311; Karen Passmore x228, Kyla Thoms x237; On-site at scholarship event in Toronto: (416) 557-5220, kpassmore@rsgylerowland.com, kthoms@argylerowland.com ; TD Bank Financial Group contact: Simon Townsend, (416) 944-7161
Scotland's National Newspaper
96% of women are liars, honest
5,000 women polled
Half the women said that if they became pregnant by another man but wanted to stay with their partner, they would lie about the baby's real father.
Forty-two per cent would lie about contraception in order to get pregnant, no matter the wishes of their partner.
Infidelity--It may be in our genes. Our Cheating Hearts
Devotion and betrayal, marriage and divorce: how evolution shaped human love.
South Korean Husband Wins Paternity Fraud Lawsuit
Associated Press, USA
June 1, 2004
South Korean husband successfully sues wife for Paternity Fraud and gets marriage annulled. Wins $42,380 in compensation
DNA test confirms fraud, annulment granted: judge
The Visayan Daily Star, Bacolod City, Philippines, BY CARLA GOMEZ, February 28, 2009
Bacolod Regional Trial Court Judge Ray Alan Drilon has annulled the marriage of a Negrense couple after a DNA test showed that the child borne by the wife was not the biological offspring of the husband who works abroad.
The family court judge ruled that the marriage of the couple, whose names are being withheld by the DAILY STAR on the request of the court, was null and void.
Due to fraud committed by the wife in getting her overseas worker husband to marry her, properties acquired during their marriage are awarded in favor of the husband, the judge said in his decision, a copy of which was furnished the DAILY STAR yesterday.
The judge also declared that since the overseas worker is not the biological, much less the legitimate father of the child of the woman, the Civil Registrar is ordered to change the surname of the child to the mother's maiden name and remove the name of the plaintiff as father of the child.
The complainant said he was working as an electronics engineer in the United Arab Emirates and on his return to the Philippines in 2001, his girlfriend of 10 years with whom he had sex, showed him a pregnancy test result showing that she was pregnant.
On receiving the news he was overjoyed and offered to marry her. Shortly after he went to Saudi Arabia to work, and his wife gave birth to a baby girl in the same year.
The birth of the child only five months after their marriage puzzled him but his wife told him that the baby was born prematurely, so he believed her, the husband said. Read More ..
Adulterous woman ordered to pay husband £177,000 in 'moral damages'
The Daily Mail, UK
18th February 2009
An adulterous Spanish woman who conceived three children with her lover has been ordered to pay £177,000 in 'moral damages' to her husband.
The cuckolded man had believed that the three children were his until a DNA test eventually proved they were fathered by another man.
The husband, who along with the other man cannot be named for legal reasons to protect the children's identities, suspected his second wife may have been unfaithful in 2001.
Infidelity 'is natural'
BBC, U.K., September 25, 1998
Females 'stray to gather the best possible genes for their offspring'
Infidelity may be natural according to studies that show nine out of 10 mammals and birds that mate for life are unfaithful.
Experts found animals that fool around are only following the urges of biology.
New studies using genetic testing techniques show that even the most apparently devoted of partners often go in search of the sexual company of strangers.
Females stray to gather the best possible genes for their offspring, while males are driven to father as many and as often as possible.
"True monogamy actually is rare," said Stephen T Emlen, an expert on evolutionary behaviour at Cornell University.
Who's the Daddy?
Up to three million Britons may be wrong about who their real father is , experts claim. But using DNA paternity tests to discover the truth can cause its own problems.
BBC, U.K., May 16, 2003
Dad's got blue eyes, Baby brown...
When Tessa found out she was pregnant after fertility treatment, she felt a mix of delight and doubt.
This wasn't simply pre-baby nerves - she suspected that her husband might not be the father. For Tessa had started sleeping with a colleague when the stress of the ongoing treatment became too much.
Keen to build a family with her husband, she let him believe the baby was his. But her lover threatened to reveal all if she ended the affair, and Tessa soon fell pregnant again. This time, her lover started to make nuisance calls to her home.
Tessa had no choice but to tell her husband. "I said to him, 'I've had an affair and you may not be the father of my children.' So with that, he went up the stairs, got dressed and left. And that was it," Tessa says in Women Who Live a Lie, a programme for the BBC's Five Live Report.
Would you wear the jacket?
THERE IS A story I used to find hilarious in my high school years about a not too bright man. He was light skinned, his wife was of similar hue, but their first child was born with very dark complexion (darker dan Bello, blacker dan Blakka).
When the man wondered aloud about the baby's complexion his wife assured him that the child was born dark because the child was conceived in darkness (they had sex with the lights off). The man accepted the explanation. Because he loved his wife dearly, he also ignored the fact that the child had other obvious signs of resemblance to the young dark skinned man who did their gardening. To fix the problem, the husband put flood lights, strobe lights, spotlights and forty other lights in the bed room so there would be no more darkness to create dark babies.
United States
"Duped Dads, Men Fight Centuries-Old Paternity Laws"
"Supporters of paternity identification bills point to a 1999 study by the American Association of Blood Banks that found that in 30 percent of 280,000 blood tests performed to determine paternity, the man tested was not the biological father." Read More ..
Download / view pdf file
American Association of Blood Banks
Parentage Testing Program Unit
Annual Report Summary Testing in 2001
Volume of testing 310,490 for the 2001 study
The Supreme Court of Canada -
Cour suprême du Canada
Big win for child identity rights.
Father wins right to be named on birth registration forms. Read More ..
Tricked 'fathers' may get bill's help
Michael Lautar was devastated when he learned his first wife was cheating on him, and then crushed to discover the then 5-year-old girl who called him "Daddy" wasn't really his daughter.
Next came the sucker punch.
Lautar is under court order to pay nearly $800 a month in child support and other expenses, despite the fact his ex-wife has admitted in Allegheny County court papers that Lautar is not the girl's father. The child was born during their marriage. After the couple divorced, the mother married the girl's biological father. The mother, the father and the daughter live together in Moon, according to papers filed in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.
"I'm stuck in this rip-off, this fraud," said Lautar, 40, of North Strabane. "It's paternity fraud, is what it is. ... And the state is enforcing this fraud."
Lack of DNA Paternity testing abuses Dads and Kids
New Zealand Child Support Reform Network.
Press release:
10 November 2004
Lack of free Family Court Ordered DNA Paternity testing abuses Dads and Kids.
"The Labour Government is abusing fathers and children by failing to legislate for free DNA testing to establish paternity", is how Jim Nicolle, spokesperson for the New Zealand Child Support Reform Network, responds to United Futures call for Family Court Ordered DNA paternity tests. Read More ..