Montreal Council on Foreign Relations

In the Trois-Rivières area, about 2000 buildings whose the concrete was manufactured with aggregates containing pyrrhotite was the subject of litigation. At the beginning of a trial started in 2009, the experts representing all defendants grouped together and adopted a number of protocols relating to inspection, visual damage assessment, core sampling, and laboratory testing. The aggregate pyrrhotite content is obtained from the concrete sulfur content, the pyrrhotite/pyrite/chalcopyrite ratio and other parameters related to the concrete mixture. In a 2014 judgment, the Court required compensation to all owners whose concrete was made with aggregates containing 0.23 vol% of pyrrhotite or more, whether or not their concrete was damaged. The intrinsic heterogeneity of concrete in terms of sulfur and sulfide contents, from one core to another, but also within a single core, leads to a significant variability of the aggregate pyrrhotite content obtained. Consequently, the 0.23 vol% limit appears highly questionable.

Adult immigrant students in language courses benefit from paired discussions not only by acquiring second language proficiency, but also by developing soft skills that enhance their employability in the host society, such as the ability to maintain meaningful discussions with unknown people, interview, and networking skills. Applied regularly, paired discussions also contribute to a more inclusive educational environment and often allow participants to create friendly relationships. Based on observations, classroom discussions, and pedagogical experiments, this paper discusses the procedure, benefits, and limitations of paired discussions and provides practical recommendations.

View European Commission Proposal on Corporate Mobility and Digitalization: Between Enabling (Cross-Border Corporate) Freedom and Fighting the ‘Bad Guy’ by Thomas Biermeyer,Marcus Meyer - European Company Law

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a fungal disease of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) causing frequent economic losses to farmers under growing conditions of Eastern Canada. To assess risks associated with this disease and guide fungicide use decisions, many researchers from numerous countries have developed weather-based forecasting models. This work aims at evaluating which model produces the most accurate predictions of disease infection or deoxynivalenol (DON) content under climatic conditions occurring in Quebec. Spring wheat was grown during two seasons and winter wheat during one season at four experimental sites located in Quebec. Nine selected models for evaluation produced predictions of DON content (Canada and Italy), disease incidence (Argentina and Italy), and probability of epidemics (United States). Data from plots without fungicide (52 samples) were used to test the models listed above. Reliability of the selected forecasting models was evaluated with receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. DON content (≥1 ppm) was the best crop damage indicator to differentiate epidemic (cases) and nonepidemic (controls) situations. Two American and the Argentinean forecasting models were more reliable than the others when the thresholds recommended in the literature were adjusted using the results for the ROC curve analyses. Those models are a good starting point for the implementation of an FHB forecasting system adapted to wheat production in Quebec.

Les romances au travail, qui correspondent à des relations mutuelles et consensuelles impliquant une attraction sexuelle, sont de plus en plus fréquentes en raison de divers facteurs environnementaux et organisationnels. Pourtant, les dirigeants, les cadres, les employés comme les professionnels RH, se sentent souvent démunis à l’égard de leur gestion faute de connaissances et de balises sur le sujet. Cette étude analyse les résultats d’une étude sur la gestion des romances au travail menées au Québec et les compare à ceux d’autres enquêtes menées aux États-Unis. L’étude montre que presque la moitié des professionnels en ressources humaines répondants (49 %) disent que leur organisation n’a aucune norme tant formelle qu’informelle en matière de romances au travail, 39 % expriment qu’elle applique des normes plutôt informelles et 12 %, des règles formelles et informelles. Notre analyse permet d’identifier une typologie de cinq grandes approches de gestion des romances au travail : suivi, counseling, mesures administratives de contrôle des romances, mesures administratives favorables aux romances et mesures disciplinaires. Des implications pour la pratique et des avenues de recherche sont présentées.

This article examines the new EU rules on the resolution of banks and their conformity with Article 107 TFEU. Normally, state aid rules apply to national measures. However, EU law that came into effect on 1 January 2016 extended the application of state aid rules to the decisions and actions of the Single Resolution Board. This article argues that, although compliance with Article 107 TFEU by the Single Resolution Board will make its decisions more complicated, it will also bring about much needed uniformity in the resolution of banks across the EU.