Justin Trottier to Speak in 7 Cities and Appear at BC's First Atheist Conference

Toronto, Ontario -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/09/2011 -- In culmination of the Kelowna and Kamloops Atheist Bus Campaigns, featuring the slogan "There's probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life", run by the Centre for Inquiry, CFI's National Director and the Campaign's Chief Spokesperson Justin Trottier will undertake a Western Canadian speaking tour, with stops in:

Wednesday, May 4: Edmonton
Thursday, May 5: Calgary
Friday, May 6: Kelowna
Saturday, May 7: Kamloops
Sunday, May 8: Kelowna and Abbotsford
Monday, May 9: Vancouver
Wednesday, May 11: Victoria

Apress conference will be held in Kelowna on Friday, May 6th, 3:00pm, Okanagan College, 1000 K.L.O. Road, Rm. H101.

Trottier will appear at the "Imagine No Religion Conference" on Saturday, May 7th, at the Kamloops Convention Centre, 1250 Rogers Way. This is the first atheist conference in BC and will feature famous blogger PZ Myers as well as Philosopher Chris diCarlo and Nate Phelps, the gay rights champion and atheist son of Fred Phelps of the notoriously anti-gay "Westboro Baptist Church."

Trottier will be available for media interviews during his trip.

CFI is an educational charity promoting reason, science and secular values, and providing a voice for atheists, agnostics and secular humanists.

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Toronto, Ontario -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2011 -- Consumer advocates in Toronto to join others around the world in a simultaneous demonstration

WHAT: More than 15 consumer advocates will swallow "overdoses" of scam medications sold by major retailers which contain no active ingredients. The action is the culmination of a worldwide demonstration taking place in more than 25 countries to inform consumers about homeopathy.

Local demonstrators will take part in the '10:23 Campaign', which will see demonstrations in more than 55 cities around the world showing global outcry at the disproven medication. Toronto will join Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Kitchener-Waterloo, Ottawa and Montreal in this event

The protests will show that 'There's Nothing In Homeopathy', as homeopathic remedies available on the shelves of pharmacies and from private practitioners contain none of the natural ingredients they are supposedly based on, and have been shown by clinical trials to be no more effective than water.

WHEN: 12:00 p.m. noon on Saturday, Feb. 5, 2011

WHERE: SW Corner of Yonge St. and Dundas St., Toronto, in front of Eaton Centre

WHO: Members of the Centre for Inquiry's Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism (CASS) and the Association for Science and Reason

Contact: Michael Kruse, 416-737-4960, cass@cficanada.ca, www.1023.org.uk

About the Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism (CASS) and the Centre for Inquiry Canada (CFI)
CASS is a national, fast response team which critically engages with scientific, technological and medical claims made in public discourse. We address factual inaccuracies and misinformation in public debates by promoting evidence-based science. CASS is a subset of CFI. CFI is the leading free-thought organization in Canada promoting reason, science, secularism and freedom of inquiry. cass@cficanada.ca

The Association for Science and Reason (ASR) is a not-for-profit organization composed of diverse individuals. ASR's mandate is to promote the understanding and application of critical thinking skills and scientific methodology via educational outreach, activism, collecting and disseminating information, and communication (with the public and the media). info@scienceandreason.ca

The 10:23 Campaign – run by the non-profit grassroots organisation The Merseyside Skeptics Society - last year organized protests in over a dozen cities around the UK, with over 350 consumer rights activists taking part, in campaigns which were featured prominently in news media ranging from the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, Germany's Die Spiegel magazine and mainstream French television.

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Toronto, Ontario -- (SBWIRE) -- 09/10/2010 -- The One School System Network (OSSN), a coalition of teachers, civil rights, secularist and religious groups, will hold a rally calling for the end of tax-payer funding to the Roman Catholic public school system.

The rally will be held on Monday, September 13 in front of the Royal York Hotel at 100 Front Street from 12 noon - 2:00pm.

The rally will occur outside an international summit on education - "The Building Blocks for Education: Whole System Reform" - being held by the Ministry of Education.

"Its an international embarrassment, a waste of millions a year, and a violation of church-state separation to spend tax dollars on a system that can choose only to hire employees in good standing with their religion," said Justin Trottier of the Centre for Inquiry.

The UN has twice found Canada in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights for publicly funding Catholic schools.

Member groups of the OSSN include prominent religious organizations such as the Canadian Hindu Advocacy, the Muslim Canadian Congress, and the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity.

"One stroke of the legislative pen will undo this injustice," said Malcolm Buchanan of Civil Rights in Public Education. Quebec, Manitoba, and Newfoundland have all removed denomination school systems.

OSSN members and supporters include:

- Centre for Inquiry Canada

- Canadian Civil Liberties Association

- Civil Rights in Public Education

- The Canadian Hindu Advocacy

- Muslim Canadian Congress

- Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity

- Humanist Association of Canada

- International Campaign for Human Rights

- Secular Ontario

Visit http://www.canadasdirtylittlesecret.com

For more information, please contact
OSSN Media Officer
Sheila Ayala
613-738-7720
sheila@secularism.net

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

The Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism at the Centre for Inquiry warns parents this week not to buy into the hype surrounding the supposed health effects of wireless networks. There is no evidence to suggest that children are even suffering an illness, let alone that Wi-Fi is the cause of it.

Toronto, Ontario -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/27/2010 -- The Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism at the Centre for Inquiry warns parents this week not to buy into the hype surrounding the supposed health effects of wireless networks. There is no evidence to suggest that children are even suffering an illness, let alone that Wi-Fi is the cause of it.

Scientists and skeptics from across Canada and the US have come out against this push to remove wireless networks from schools due to the complete lack of evidence. Mitchell Gerskup of CASS sums up the chorus from scientists, "The experts point out that a typical Wi-Fi network would result in less than 1% of the exposure resulting from cell phone use, and that extensive studies have shown no risk from cell phones -- even for adults with more than a decade of constant exposure."

Dr. Lorne Trottier, an engineer who runs the Canadian website http://www.emfandhealth.com and who is a CASS science adviser, puts even a finer point on it, "the overwhelming preponderance of evidence and the overwhelming consensus from mainstream science is that there is no harm from EMF based on existing safety guidelines."

CASS respects the fears of parents, and they are easy to understand. However, the fears about Wi-Fi in the classroom are misplaced and the stress caused by this worry is far greater than any ill effect of wireless communications. The low power of the microwaves and their non-ionizing nature (meaning they cannot cause damage at the molecular level) does not pose even a theoretical risk. "Its like the light from a flashlight," says Behzad Elahi, an MD studying neurology at the University of Toronto, "the radiation is the same nature as visible light, it would take a beam over ten times as strong to cause a sunburn, and that would be standing on top of it."

CASS recommends that parents and teachers remain informed and follow the evidence. Where there is no evidence of harm, we should remain skeptical, in order to prevent spreading needless fears about a useful educational tool.

CASS is a national, fast response team which critically engages with scientific, technological and medical claims made in public discourse. We address factual inaccuracies and misinformation in public debates by promoting evidence-based science. CASS is a project of the Centre for Inquiry, the leading freethought organization in Canada promoting reason, science, secularism and freedom of inquiry.

For More Information Contact:

Michael Kruse, Co-Chair and Spokesperson
Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism
(416) 737-4960
mkrusecass@gmail.com

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Montreal, Quebec -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/12/2010 -- Montreal will host the largest gathering of international leaders and celebrities in the freethought movement ever held in North America and the first of its kind in Canada.

The conference, co-hosted by Atheist Alliance International (AAI) and Humanist Canada (HC), features prominent speakers from three continents to address and celebrate the rising interest in a myth-free worldview. Local host organizations are the Centre for Inquiry and Atheist Freethinkers. The last AAI conference in Australia was sold out with over 2500 attendees.

The roster of eminent speakers includes: cognitive scientist Dan Dennett, author of Breaking the Spell; economist Rodrigue Tremblay on humanist ethics; acclaimed philosopher Chris diCarlo on the cognitive evolution of ethics; freethought author Dr. Susan Jacoby, 2010 AAI Richard Dawkins Award recipient; McGill evolution educator Brian Alters; Belgian philosopher Nadia Geerts; Quebec anthropologist Daniel Baril;
Pharyngula blogger P.Z. Myers.

All speakers are available for pre-convention interviews. Visit http://www.AAIConvention.org, or contact Simon Parcher, reality1@rogers.com, 613-261-0366

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Canadian Professor Tours Western Canada Promoting Humanity’s Shared African Ancestry

Toronto, Ontario -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/10/2010 -- "Regardless of who you are or where you came from—despite ethnic differences, political distinctions, and racial tensions—we are all African," writes Christopher diCarlo, whose lecture tour We Are All
African, sponsored by Centre for Inquiry (CFI), will hit Calgary, Kelowna and Vancouver between August 11-13.

CFI Advisory Fellow Christopher diCarlo will examine evidence that has allowed anthropologists to trace the lineage of human descent. He will draw the conclusion that despite the widespread tendency of certain groups to segregate and regard themselves as 'chosen people', evidence of our common evolutionary descent should undermine these social barriers.

diCarlo is past Visiting Research Scholar at Harvard University and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

For full details contact Justin Trottier, 416-402-8856, jtrottier@cficanada.ca

Calgary, Wed, Aug 11, 6:30pm
Kelowna, Thurs, Aug 12, 6:30pm
Vancouver, Fri, Aug 13, 7:00pm

CFI is an educational charity promoting reason, science, secularism, and free inquiry.

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm