Written by Vanessa Santilli on July 7 on Bankrate Canada

While 66 per cent of millennials cherish and rely heavily on their mobile devices, that dependency isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, according to a recent BMO Bank of Montreal report, it’s paying off financially.

“The millennial generation is leading the charge in terms of adopting new technologies and integrating them into their everyday lives, and as a result, are relying on their mobile devices more than ever before to complete day to day tasks — particularly when it comes to managing their finances,” said Tatiana DaCosta, head of online and mobile banking Canada, BMO Financial Group.

There are some financial pros and cons to keep in mind when navigating mobile apps — particularly if you, like 73 per cent of respondents, feel lost without your cell phone.

Knowledge is power

Since the survey participants began using a financial app, 88 per cent are now managing their finances more effectively.

Such is the case for Timothy Keslick, who regularly uses two mobile banking apps. “By being able to keep track of the money going in and out of my account, the apps help me see how much money needs to be saved to cover recurring costs, like phone payments, car payments and auto insurance, how much should be devoted to saving and where I can trim my spending on unnecessary variable expenses.”

It’s also helpful to be able to easily access banking information for the times when you’re unable to get to a computer or a teller, he adds. Continue reading →

Written by Vanessa Santilli on July 3 in QSB Insight

When Tandy Thomas was preparing to become a first-time parent, she was faced with a multitude of options while making purchasing and medical-related decisions. She wasn’t the only one.

“I was spending a lot of time with new moms and listening to them tell their stories about trying to figure out what to do and what to buy and how to make all these decisions,” says Thomas, assistant professor of marketing at Queen’s School of Business.

Thomas and colleague Amber Epp of University of Wisconsin Madison’s School of Business are part way through a study on new-parent decision-making in a “culture of choice overload.”

According to their preliminary results, choice overload is about more than the vast quantity of product and service options. “It’s really about the pressure that’s coming from cultural discourses which makes the decisions more complicated but also plays a key role in the decision making process,” says Thomas.

She refers to the three kinds of issues or “discourses” driving the decision-making process as “absent,” “evolving,” and “entrenched.”

Choosing a car seat is an example of an absent discourse as there are no guidelines to help determine the best choice. On the other hand, entrenched discourses offer established arguments for or against a particular action. Evolving discourses are constantly in flux, such as the decision to use cloth diapers versus disposable diapers or opting for cord blood banking — where the blood found in the umbilical cord is stored for future use. “This is a very new technology and it’s a very new industry so there are arguments for it, there are arguments against it, but there is no clear route as to which way to go.” Continue reading →

Written by Vanessa Santilli on May 26 on Bankrate Canada

Patricia Canale knows firsthand the price tag that comes with being in a bridal party.

“It all gets a bit expensive,” says Canale, who has been in four wedding parties.

Aside from the bridesmaid dress and various beauty and jewellery costs on the day of the wedding, there’s also the engagement gift, the shower gift and all that goes with bachelorette parties — from paying for dinner and buying the bride a gift to clubbing and getting a hotel. And don’t forget about the wedding present.

According to a survey by WeddingChannel.com, the average cost of being a bridesmaid is $1,695.

Costly as it may be, with a bit of creativity there are ways to reduce your costs. Here are some tips to ensure your bottom line takes less of a hit — and ways to navigate the choppy waters of staying within budget.

Sell your dress

“You can recoup some of your costs by putting the dress up for sale on a reseller’s website or selling it at a consignment store,” says Andrea Orr, a Windsor-based trustee in bankruptcy and senior vice-president at BDO Canada Limited.

SmartBrideBoutique.com is one of the marketplaces where brides, mothers of brides and bridal party members can buy and sell all wedding-related items, including wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses and decorations, to name a few — with savings of up to 50 per cent, says founder Andrea Lown.

“Any opportunity to sell an item you no longer need and make a few dollars is a good one,” says Orr.

Skip buying new items 

Buying used or pre-owned is a great strategy, says Lown, who started her discount website after realizing the high cost of wedding-related items when planning her own wedding. “Consider renting or borrowing things like jewellery and accessories.”

Sometimes small savings can add up. For instance, says Lown, it’s smart for bridesmaids to wear a specific colour of shoe rather than an exact style: “You’ll be more likely to wear the shoes again.”

Controlling costs 

However, as a bridesmaid it can be tough to keep down the costs because you’re not in control of the spending — it’s usually the bride’s choice of dress, hair and makeup.

“I usually just go with the flow,” says Canale. “But in the past, I have been adamant about who I want to do my dressmaking, hair and makeup. When you do this, you are able to set a budget for yourself and shop around rather than just go with the price given to you.”

Be open and honest 

If money is an issue before the celebrations begin, it will be an even bigger one when you have to pay the bills, says Orr. “Honesty is the best policy and a friend will understand your situation.”

From Lown’s experience, it’s best to be upfront with the bride regarding how much time and money you can afford to invest.

“It’s often useful to have a meeting with the entire bridal party so everyone is on the same page,” she says. “Create a budget together of all the elements of the wedding. Remember: a bride has never planned a wedding before and may not know what to expect.”

Vanessa Santilli is a freelance writer in Toronto.

Written by Vanessa Santilli on May 30 in The Catholic Register

Prime Minister Stephen Harper exceeded funding expectations for maternal and child health in the developing world. (Photo by Vanessa Santilli)

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has pledged to pump another $3.5 billion into improving the health of mothers, newborns and children in the developing world between 2015 and 2020.

Written by Vanessa Santilli on May 29 in The Catholic Register

Maternal and child health is “Canada’s flagship development priority,” said Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the Saving Every Woman, Every Child: Within Arm’s Reach summit in Toronto. (CNS photo/Paul Jeffrey)

While progress has been made towards the Millennium Development Goals of improving maternal health and reducing child mortality, challenges remain in order “to reach the most vulnerable and to reach those most excluded,” said Rosemary McCarney, co-chair of the Canadian Network for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health.

Written by Vanessa Santilli on May 20 on GlobalNews.ca (branded content)

Although television personality Rick Campanelli has been travelling as a World Vision Canada ambassador since 1997, seeing the poor living conditions for children in developing countries still hits him hard.

“You see kids up at 11 o’clock at night walking the streets and peddling goods just to make a little bit of cash,” says Campanelli, a father of two.

Campanelli travelled to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, as part of his most recent World Vision trip in February.

“The first couple days we visited a trauma recovery centre for young girls that were forced into the sex trafficking world.”

Although incredibly sad, he says it was uplifting to see the home World Vision had set up for the rescued girls. “They were teaching them all sorts of trades, there were a lot of counselors who were helping them and a lot of social activities.”

One of the most difficult parts of the trip was visiting a brick factory where young children work, he says.

“It was quite hot that day and the kids were sweating, lugging these bricks around,” he says. “They’re dealing with this equipment that looked very dangerous where you could easily lose an arm or a leg if you got too close.”

“It was bizarre to observe,” he adds.

During this time in Cambodia, one of the highlights was visiting World Vision’s night program for street kids.

“The day we were there it was all about hygiene — so washing hands, brushing teeth, cleaning their ears and different things like that our kids take for granted over here.”

And while parents in North America have options for bettering their financial situation, most parents in Cambodia aren’t so fortunate.

“The parents to these kids over there are doing all that they can do,” says Campanelli. “They’re breaking their backs, they’re working as much as they can work and it’s still not good enough to provide for their families.”

From all his travels with World Vision, he’s seen that help is still greatly needed—but it doesn’t take a lot of money to get involved to better the lives of children around the world, he adds.

“We get up in the morning, we go to work, we spend $6 on a cup of coffee,” says Campanelli. “You could put those $6 into the life of a child in a country like Cambodia and you wouldn’t even know it’s gone from your pocket.”

To sponsor a child in any of the 51 countries where World Vision Canada works, it costs $39 per month, which includes essentials such as access to safe, clean water, nutritious food, healthcare and improved education.

“Every time I go on a World Vision trip I do see that stuff is getting done,” he says. “Kids are being sponsored, they’re going to school, they’re getting school supplies and they’re getting the medical supplies that are needed for them and their families.”

Click here to view photos of Rick’s visit to Cambodia and here for videos. To learn more about World Vision, click here.

Written by Vanesa Santilli on April 22 in The Medical Post

Dr. William Cherniak had his work cut out for him. As a medical script consultant on the short film Broken Heart Syndrome, he had a lovesick protagonist with takotsubo cardio­ myopathy—a condition where the heart can be “broken” by high levels of stress. But is dying of a broken heart medically possible, or just film fiction?

Dr. William Cherniak on set of the film Broken Heart Syndrome. (Photo by Erin Simkin/Inflo Films)

While the film’s director knew the condition could be fatal, he wanted to find a way for the heart to keep expanding until it didn’t function at all.

“I found out that could actually happen after having frequent attacks that mimic heart attacks, eventually causing him to go into heart failure,” said Dr. Cherniak, a family medicine resident at the University of Toronto.

With this knowledge, the writers were able to complete the script, which aired on CBC and was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival.

In Dr. Louise McNaughton­ Filion’s experience working as a script consultant on the TV drama Hard Rock Medical — which follows a fictional group of medical students in north­ern Ontario from first to fourth year — her role has involved everything from coaching actors on how physicians inter­act with each other to research­ing various natural remedies.

Dr. Louise McNaughton-Filion sits in on a reading for the TV series Hard Rock Medical. (Photo by Derek Diorio)

“I thought it was a great idea basing the show in the North and seeing how people evolve as they go through their training, and the social problems that can occur as you work as a physician and how you deal with them,” said Dr. McNaughton-­Filion, a coroner and emergency physician in Ottawa. “Those ideas are really important to get out.”

If you’re considering offer­ ing your medical expertise to Hollywood North, here are four tips to help you decide whether this line of work is for you.

1. Accept that artistic licence is taken

Dr. McNaughton­-Filion real­ized early on it was important to accept that she was advising the writers, not instructing. “It was very difficult sometimes because I would look at some of the situations and I’d say, ‘That’s not quite the way it would go.’ And they’d say, ‘Yes, but it doesn’t follow the story arc, so we can’t do it that way.’ ”

For physicians watching medical programs, it’s always hard to swallow inaccuracies. But no matter how good the medical consultants are, details will never be perfect because it’s not real, Dr. McNaughton- Filion added. “If it were real, either it would be super boring for the audience or it would be way too gory for them.”

To remedy this, whenever she found herself getting hung up on a detail—as long as it wasn’t a big inaccuracy—Dr. McNaughton­-Filion would remind herself the script was written for viewers to under­ stand the experience of med­ ical students on a basic level.

“They are the artists and they are the ones who have the liberty to write what they want to write,” she said of the show’s creators.

2. Ability to think outside the box is paramount

Being able to take a storyline and figure out how to make it medically plausible requires critical thinking skills. For example, there was one episode on Hard Rock Medical where the writers wanted a character to deliver her baby “in the bush” with no medical care whatsoever. Dr. McNaughton-Filion’s task was to figure out how to have a physician attend a high­risk pregnancy in the middle of nowhere accompan­ied by medical students.

“The only way that could possibly work—because it would be against both ethics and medical conscience—is if it were somebody’s sister.”

3. Word of mouth is critical in this work

Often, opportunities for doctors to serve as a script adviser come from a pre­existing connec­tion they have with someone involved in a show, noted Greg Spottiswood, creator and execu­tive producer of the new Can­adian medical drama Remedy.

“For Remedy, my colleague knew a doctor who he thought might be a good person to hook us up with,” Spottiswood explained. “What you do is you meet with that person, you talk about the show and you take their temperature in terms of their interest in doing this kind of work. It’s not like one puts an ad in the newspaper.”

Dr. Cherniak knew the director of Broken Heart Syndrome, and Dr. McNaughton­ Filion said one of the writers of Hard Rock Medical, who is a friend, approached her about becoming a consultant.

“I wouldn’t have been comfortable taking this on if I didn’t trust and enjoy working with (director) Derek (Diorio) and his team,” she said.

In terms of promoting ser­vices to future film clients, Dr. Cherniak maintains an active LinkedIn profile.

Dr. McNaughton-Filion’s approach to landing this kind of work is a bit more relaxed. “Opportunities arise when you are excited by what you do and you share your enthusiasm with others. Also, (it is helpful) if you don’t put a price tag on it.”

4. Don’t quit your day job

As much as script consult­ing is fun and interesting, “it’s not a full-time job,” said Dr. McNaughton-­Filion, who consulted in her spare time, outside of her full­time obligations. In terms of pay, she didn’t do it for the money. “It’s much less than I could make clinic­ ally. . . I like to call it one of my volunteer jobs for the arts.”

In Dr. Cherniak’s experience, the workload was minimal. “It was about a half hour to an hour every couple of weeks of just answering questions. And then, after script development, I helped out on site during the actual filming process,” which took place over four days in Toronto. But the pay is highly variable,” he added.

Written by Vanessa Santilli on May 16 on CreditCards.ca

The tax deadline has come and gone, but many people still have yet to pay up, leaving them in tax debt. But by not paying what you owe to the CRA, you are digging yourself into a deeper hole. Here’s what can happen if you put off paying, and how you can preempt owing a large sum next year.

If you’re carrying income tax debt, you’re not alone. In fact, Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) spokesperson Cheryl Yeung has been quoted in multiple media outlets as saying that, for 2012, the outstanding income tax debt for all of Canada was $2.25 billion.

When you don’t pay your taxes, the CRA charges you interest. And don’t think about not filing at all in an effort to avoid paying, either: there’s a penalty fee for that, too, which increases with each month you’re late. If you’re putting off either filing or paying your tax debt, it’s vital that you take care action as soon as possible.

“Many Canadians do not understand the importance of filing a yearly income tax return,” says Mary Plahouras, a senior estate manager with MNP Ltd, home to government licensed trustees in bankruptcy and proposal administrators. “By filing your return on time, you are letting the CRA know your current tax situation. Without that information, the CRA cannot determine if you are still eligible to receive certain benefit payments.”

Filing and paying on time also means avoiding possible penalty and interest charges, or legal action by the CRA.

There is a difference between not paying taxes and not filing tax returns, says Frank Flynn, a former CRA complex case collections officer.

“[Not paying by the] deadline results in interest charges,” says Flynn. Late interest varies from month to month based on the prime rate. “However, it’s important to understand that the CRA calculates interest compounded daily, unlike the simple interest calculation most commercial lenders charge.”

The penalty for late filing is 5 per cent of the amount owing and an additional 1 per cent for each full month your return is late, to a maximum of 12 months.

What action can the CRA take?
“Any amount you owe is payable in full immediately when you’re assessed or reassessed,” says Plahouras. “If you do not pay the outstanding debt or contact the CRA to discuss payment of your debt, the CRA may take legal actions to collect the unpaid amount.”

According to Plahouras, the CRA can do any of the following:

• Garnish wages;
• Freeze and/or garnish bank accounts;
• Seize any income tax refunds until you have filed all outstanding returns that need to be filed (and paid the tax you owe on those returns);
• Have all or part of any money owed to you by other federal government departments, such as HST credits, sent to the CRA.

How to avoid a huge tax payment
While you can’t avoid paying your taxes, you can take steps to soften the blow. The most effective way to avoid a tax shock is to have a clearer understanding of roughly what must be paid in taxes at a particular level of income, says Flynn.

“If you’re a salaried employee incurring tax liabilities that you can’t pay, rework your budget to reduce expenses and include tax,” he says.

“You can ask to have tax — or more tax — deducted at source from employment income, pension benefits from an employer-sponsored pension plan and Old Age Security or Canada Pension Plan benefits,” adds Plahouras.

Contributing to an RRSP will also help, as your taxable income is reduced by the amount you contribute.

If you’re self-employed, it’s your responsibility to make sure that the [tax] money isn’t going into your general revenues with which you operate your business or household,” says Flynn.

Try setting up a separate bank account and paying your taxes monthly instead of quarterly or annually. This way, you avoid the temptation to spend what you should set aside, says Laurie Campbell, CEO of Credit Canada Debt Solutions.

Written by Vanessa Santilli on May 16 in The Catholic Register

Over the centuries, people have reported seeing visions of Jesus or the Virgin Mary on everything from trees to toast and even on pancakes. Recent sightings in Canada have included people sure they could see the face of Jesus on a pennant hanging behind a church altar in Prince Edward Island and others seeing a likeness of the Virgin Mary on the bark of a Toronto tree.

Kang Lee, a University of Toronto professor whose research indicates that sometimes what people believe can influence what they see.

What those reports may actually prove, however, is the power of faith.

Humans have a natural tendency to over-identify — even within random patterns — and that can contribute to religious sightings, said Colleen Shantz, a University of St. Michael’s College associate professor who has researched the cognitive science of religion. “Evolution has left us humans with a high sensitivity to faces,” said Shantz.

She was responding to a study published in the April edition of Cortex, a peer-reviewed journal, that found that what people believe can influence what they see. Lead researcher Kang Lee, a professor at the University of Toronto, calls this phenomenon “believing is seeing.”

His study used neuroscience to try to explain the “reality” behind people claiming to have spotted images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary — or even Elvis — on inanimate objects. He found that when people report seeing these images there is an “actual physical reality” in that they may see human features based on their own past experiences and biases. So for a devout Christian to see Christ or Mary is “perfectly normal.”

But what is the Church’s take on this phenomenon?

“The Church does not formally investigate these types of images,” said Neil MacCarthy, director of public relations and communications for the Archdiocese of Toronto.
“If it prompts a discussion about faith, then that’s something that can be positive.

However, we need to be careful about popularizing these types of stories.”

In many cases, the motivation is not entirely pure such as when people are trying to sell images, he said. For example, in 2006 a man from Ohio listed a pancake, which he claimed displayed the face of Jesus, for sale on eBay. It reached a high bid of $15,000. Subsequently, it turned out to be a hoax.

This phenomenon known as “face pareidolia” isn’t due to an overactive imagination. It’s caused by the frontal cortex which helps generate expectations and sends signals to the posterior visual cortex to enhance the interpretation stimuli from the outside world, he explains.

But although the study’s hook focused on seeing religious faces, all the participants were not religious and the faces they saw were not necessarily of a religious nature. The study’s 20 participants were shown “pure noise” or pixellated images, and then it was suggested that 50 per cent of the images contained faces, while the other half did not. As a result of this suggestion, 35 per cent of the people reported seeing faces where faces did not exist, said Lee.

“I’m very confident that if I had a group of religious participants, such as devout Christians, and I told them to look for Jesus’ face, I’m pretty certain I would get the same kind of results,” said Lee. “It all depends on your past experiences and your expectations.”

These types of sightings don’t have much to do with faith, said Shantz.

“It has to do with previous exposure to images of Jesus,” she said.

The more neutral way to discuss the premise that seeing is believing is called enculturation.

“We’re immersed in meaning making all the time and things take on greater or lesser significance to us and, hence, are more available to us in situations,” she said.

(Santilli is a freelance writer in Toronto.)