Daily Bulletin

Monday, September 15, 1997

University of Waterloo -- Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

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A lifetime of income tax

Tax professionals and academics will celebrate two milestones in Canadian income tax history at a reception in Toronto today. They're marking the 80th birthday of Canada's Income Tax Act -- a venerable presence in every Canadian taxpayer's life -- and the recent "birth" of the Master of Taxation program offered by UW's school of accountancy.

The tax act received Royal Assent on Sept. 20, 1917. "Income tax was introduced at that time as a temporary measure," explains Jim Barnett, director of the MTax program and host of the 5:30 reception at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario building. "It was needed to finance the country's needs during the First World War."

"Whether we like it or hate it," says Barnett, "income tax helps pay for the services that make Canada one of the best countries in which to live."

The new Master of Taxation (MTax) degree program, which takes 20 months and calls on students to pay fees that cover its full costs, gets under way this month at the ICAO building. "The MTax program is a response to the tax community's needs," Barnett says. "It will give students a thorough grounding in tax law, develop their tax research and communication skills, and show them how to apply their knowledge and skills to real-life cases." Fifteen students are taking part in the program's initial run.

At the reception, Barnett will acknowledge representatives of the program's sponsors -- the "big six" accounting firms of Arthur Andersen, Coopers & Lybrand, Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and Price Waterhouse, plus CCH Canadian and Carswell, the two leading publishers of tax material in Canada.

Access to new information sources

The UW library (in partnership with the rest of the Tri-Universities Group of libraries) is launching something new today, the ERL Database Sharing Project, where ERL stands for Electronic Reference Library. What this mouthful means is access over the Web -- for people at UW, the University of Guelph and Wilfrid Laurier University, not for the whole wide world -- to a dozen major electronic databases that you could previously use only by trekking over to the library.

On the menu are Current Contents, Humanities Index and Abstracts, PsycLIT, Life Sciences Abstracts, Canadian Business and Current Affairs, and seven other indexes and abstracts. Says an announcement from TUG: "ERL offers powerful search and retrieval software that allows users to search databases for journal articles using a World Wide Web browser, such as Netscape, or by downloading and installing a client. This means searching can be done from the convenience of a workstation in your office or lab." Or residence room, I suppose, as soon as the connections to Village I are ready.

It's a two-month trial project, and you can get at all the electronic goodies at http://libnt1.lib.uoguelph.ca:8080, or via UW's Electronic Library.

Happening today at Waterloo

Ground Zero restaurant in the Student Life Centre is scheduled to open for business today, in the space once occupied by the now defunct Wild Duck Cafe. Ground Zero is an annex to the Bombshelter Pub, and will be run, like the Bomber, by the Federation of Students. "Ground Zero is no fast food joint," Laurie Bulchak wrote in Imprint Friday. "The restaurant will have full table service, with meals served on china plates, not paper. There is an upper class, relaxed atmosphere about the restaurant." It's to be open from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., with a breakfast buffet, salad bar, pasta dishes and other good things.

A blood donor clinic is in operation in the Student Life Centre today, tomorrow and Wednesday, from 10 a.m. to noon and 1:30 to 5 p.m. The Red Cross was offering advance appointments to save people time, but you can also drop by the clinic and take your chances (or make an appointment for later).

Auditions start today (3:30, Theatre of the Arts) for the drama department's production of "Oh, What a Lovely War!", to be staged November 11-15. Information: ext. 5808.

And . . . the September meeting of the senate, UW's academic governing body, is scheduled for tonight at 7:30 in Needles Hall room 3001. There isn't much on the printed agenda, but I've been told that the president will use the occasion to make public the long-awaited final report of UW's Commission on Institutional Planning, which delivered its preliminary report last spring. Assuming that that happens, tomorrow's Bulletin will have at least the beginnings of a summary of it.

Coming before you know it

Registration for campus recreation programs begins tomorrow, with tickets available starting at 8 a.m. at the "red north" corner of the Physical Activities complex. Each ticket is for a stated registration time, Tuesday or Wednesday evening between 4 and 9:30 p.m.

The first teaching assistant workshop for the fall term is scheduled Friday, the teaching resource office says. Topic: "Interactive Lecturing". Says a flyer: "In this workshop you will learn about some interactive activities that can generate student involvement while retaining the advantages of lecture method. . . . The workshop is open to all graduate students across campus, whether you are teaching a course for the first time, looking for ways to improve a course, or preparing for a teaching career." Preregistration: trace@watserv1. Information: ext. 3132.

The talk of the campus

As mentioned in the Bulletin a couple of days ago, central stores has been making arrangements for UW to receive out-of-country mail through the United States in the event of a Canada Post strike. The company providing the service is Mailfast, located in Jericho, New York. My grasp of New York geography clearly isn't what I thought it was, as people have quickly explained to me that Jericho is not near Buffalo, as I rashly said, but down in the middle of Long Island -- convenient, I now figure, to JFK airport. Earlier notices about the emergency address spoke only of mail from the United States, but in fact mail from other countries can also be addressed there, says Carmen Jaray of central stores.

Finally, and in case you hadn't heard yet, the football Warriors are now 2-0 for the season, having disposed of Windsor 36-15 on Saturday.

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY September 14, 1991: Campus and community admirers attend a dinner in the PAC main gymnasium in honour of business leader Walter Bean.

September 15, 1987: Staff start moving books from the "Engineering, Mathematics and Science Library" from the Math and Computer building to the library's new home in the Davis Centre.

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca -- (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
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