Monday, October 19, 2020

Tuesday, October 20. 2020

Today's classes are: 

9:15 - 11:50 D Block Social and Environmental Science
12:30 - 3:05 A Block Criminology

D Block Social and Environmental Sciences - So, we've talked about how and why people have different beliefs about their relationship with nature. We also talked about ways that people draw attention to and address environmental issues. This week we'll examine voting and elections. In a democratic society, people have different beliefs and values, which influence their position on political issues. Political parties bring together people with similar beliefs and political perspectives who are seeking to effect change by being elected. Political parties in Canada are structured in a hierarchical fashion. There’s always a single leader at the top, who serves as a powerful person and figure of the party. The leader helps to formulate party policy and determines where his or her party stands on the political issues of the day. The leader of the party that has the most elected seats in the legislature becomes the Premier of British Columbia. 

Canada is one of the few countries in the world that uses the so-called “first-past-the-post” (FPTP) electoral system for all its elections. Under this system, the winning candidate is whoever gets the most votes, even if “the most” is not an outright majority. This is also known as the plurality system. In a provincial election, an MLA candidate who can win the most votes in his or her district will be declared elected, thereby putting his or her party leader one step closer to becoming premier. 

The most important elements of a party’s campaign platform — or list of promises to voters — will be crafted by the leader’s office and broadcast across the province, while at the local level, the men and women running for seats in the Legislature will campaign exclusively in their own electoral districts where much of what they promise and promote will be closely tied to their leader’s provincial campaign. So, what are the Platforms for the three main parties here in BC? 


As you can see the platforms deal with:

Children, Childcare, & Youth in Care
Climate Change & the Environment
Education
Healthcare
Housing & Homelessness
Human Rights & Equality
Indigenous Issues
Jobs, the Economy, and Affordability
Mental Health, Drugs, & Addiction
Public Safety
Resource Extraction & Export
Transit & Transportation

As a class we will be running the Student Vote here at Vanier this Thursday through HOMEROOM VOTING (in-class voting scenario)

On Thursday, before the school day begins, we will distribute ballots to all participating teachers and classrooms. At the beginning of homeroom class, each teacher hands out the ballots to students in their class. Students will vote immediately, and the teacher will collect the ballots shortly after that. Designated poll clerks collect the ballots from each class before the end of the period, using either a ballot box or envelope. All ballot boxes and/or envelopes are then taken to a secure room, where the ballots can be counted immediately or later in the day. This method makes voting very quick and easy, as it is completed in just a few minutes at the start of the day. However, student voters do not get the authentic experience of visiting a polling station.

Our goal for the rest of today is to advertise both the Student Vote and the three political parties with posters around the school.

A Block Criminology - Today, we'll look at individual exploitation of an institutional position, influence peddling & bribery, theft and employee fraud, client fraud and corporate crime. I'll introduce to Edwin H. Sutherland's Differential Association Theory (he introduced the concept "white collar crime"). Since we didn't get to it yesterday, we'll watch the History Channel DVD "Scammed"...419 scams are called so because the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code that makes it illegal to obtain money under false pretences is section 419. Millions of North Americans and Europeans are being targeted by scammers from Nigeria with very few being arrested or suffering any consequences.

419 is a modern day version of the 1500's Spanish Prisoner con when after the English defeated the Spanish armada in 1588-89, there were still a lot of English sailors who didn’t make it home. Letters began arriving to wealthy English families using the same idea, "if you can give me a small amount of money, then I can free this English prisoner.” In the same way then as today, the con man keeps squeezing more money and eventually begins threatening the victim. Canadian author Will Ferguson received the Giller Prize in 2012 for his book 419 - the tale of an email scam and a woman who sets out on a wide-ranging search for those she believes responsible for her father's death.


There are essentially five cons that are the basis for every swindle since the dawn of man; today's Nigerian email scam is nothing more than a derivation of a Spanish conquistador's bait-and-switch con that started more than 600 years ago. In Scammed, Paul Wilson, dubbed the "World's Greatest Con Man," and his team take a detailed look inside the complicated schemes and micro-cons that have plagued unsuspecting people for hundreds, even thousands of years, showing how many of these scams not only survived but evolved to be brutally effective with the help of modern technology. In each episode, Paul plays out long cons on designated marks so that he can help expose the cons, hustles and schemes that have victimized so many people, while teaching others how to avoid them. Though the tricks may be the same, the stakes are higher; nowadays more than money is on the line. Social security numbers, bank account information, and loads of private information are there for the taking... but only if you let a con man in.
You'll have four questions to answer for me:

1. What’s the psychology behind the con and what can we learn from it? 
2. How does a con man identify a mark? 
3. What are the four phases of a con game? 
4. What is the one fact that instantly makes you harder to con?


Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre
BBB releases list of Top 10 riskiest scams in Canada in 2019


And from the CBC Dot.Con 
The digital era is good for most people. But it is beyond good for con artists.  The internet’s famous ability to connect everyone, everywhere, makes it ideal for scammers:  they can find victims in a dozen countries, transfer the money they steal through a dozen further countries, and most importantly, remain completely anonymous while they’re doing it.

Dot.Con goes inside the writhing underworld of online scams.  We see just how prolific and inventive the cybercriminals are. Interpol says it is a trillion dollar a year crime. We witness the three-way dance of crooks, cops and victims. We talk to researchers and authorities who are only now gaining an understanding of the psychology at work in the most effective scams. We’ll see how Canadians can fight back, in recommended and definitely not recommended ways. 

You can watch the documentary on CBC Gem here

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