Several border guards at the Emerson border crossing walked off the job Thursday in protest of a new policy requiring them to wear name tags.

The policy, instituted by the Canada Border Services Agency, was implemented Tuesday after more than a year of discussions with the Customs and Immigration Union, which opposes the policy.

Denis Vinette, director general of border operations for CBSA, said a significant number of guards who reported to work in Emerson Thursday withdrew their services, saying the name tags are a risk to their health and safety.

He said the agency was prepared for this possibility and deployed managers and guards who didn't withdraw their services. There was no service disruption for travellers or commercial operators, he said.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/border-guards-stage-wildcat-strike-183470801.html

WFP Columnist, Maureen Scurfield: A Who's Who of Winnipeg streamed through the frosty air into the Fort Garry Hotel's 100th birthday party -- a cocktail party the likes of which hasn't haunted the hotel in a century. Greeters in formal suits placed flying gold balloons into each guest's hand with 67 fancy prizes to be won -- including hotel sleepovers and Ten Spa packages. Then they squished into elevators giggling like little kids, with their balloons bobbing all the way to the the double ballroom bash on the seventh floor. What a way to end a Tuesday work day!

Shimmering in warm gold decor and lighting, with a glassed-in oyster bar hidden off to one side, the party space invited guests to seek out stations loaded with yummy finger foods and bubbly around the rooms. You have rarely seen a friendlier party.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/a-whos-who-haunts-fort-garry-hotel--for-birthday-bash-183470621.html

OTTAWA -- Ottawa is forging ahead with contentious changes to employment insurance, announcing an implementation date of Jan. 6, despite heated opposition from unions and politicians from Eastern Canada.

Starting in the new year, people on EI will face stricter, more complex rules for keeping their benefits, with the goal of getting unemployed workers back into the workforce sooner.

As Human Resources Minister Diane Finley initially announced last May, new regulations will encourage unemployed workers to take available jobs fairly close to home, even if they pay a bit less than their previous work....         ... Unions and opposition MPs say the federal government is hurting seasonal workers and easterners and will force people to take low-paying jobs. "Their impact will be hardest on the thousands of workers in seasonal industries such as fishing, forestry, construction and tourism, including a high proportion of women."

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/stricter-rules-for-ei-coming-in-new-year-183470981.html

Complete; OTTAWA - A newly signed agreement says the United States will be allowed to share biometric information about visa applicants to Canada with third countries.

It means the fingerprints and photo of someone who hopes to visit, study or work in Canada could be passed to Washington, which in turn might share them with another country to help verify the person's identity. The federal privacy commissioner's office has raised concerns that such personal information provided by Canada could end up in countries that have a poor human rights record, endangering the applicant or their family.

At a ceremony to sign the information-sharing agreement, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and U.S. ambassador David Jacobson stressed that the information would be handled with due regard for privacy.

The initiative, which affects nationals of 29 countries seeking visas, is part of a perimeter security deal reached last year between Canada and the United States. The idea is to strengthen continental security while speeding the passage of goods and people across the 49th parallel.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/canada-us-sign-visa-info-sharing-agreement-part-of-perimeter-security-deal-183383161.html

(CNN) -- The Arctic winter may be long and dark but one light still shines bright in the land of the midnight sun -- Iceland's booming tourist trade.

Foreign visitors increased by 15.9% last year whilst travel now accounts for 5.9% of GDP, according to the Icelandic tourist board.

Given the financial catastrophe confronting the country as recently as 2008 -- when the IMF stepped in with a $2.1 billion loan after several major Icelandic banks collapsed -- this turbo-charged development is all the more remarkable.

"We've had this extraordinary growth in tourism in the last few years," Iceland's president, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, told CNN's Richard Quest.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/travel/iceland-tourism-grimsson/

(A complete article published originally in the WFP, Dec.  '66)

Go-go dancer Joy Sinclair is out of a job at the Niakwa Motor Hotel because a customer complained about her act. Inspectors from the Manitoba liquor commission visited the Niakwa to catch the show Dec. 3. On Dec. 7, Joy swung for what could be the last time, at the hotel. The commission decision, based on its inspectors' report, felt the act was causing disorder among the customers. By power under the Liquor. Control Act drawn up two years ago, the commission can order what it considers disruptive entertainment in a beverage room to be stopped. This is the first time the power has been exercised, commission chairman N. E. Rodger said. The woman who complained about the act has not been named. Miss Sinclair, 21, said her dancing  has certainly not suggestive and was similar to the go-go dancing on television. During her act, she wears a two-piece bathing suit with a fringe and stockings. A go-goer since last March, she has worked at the Niakwa over a month. She has worked at two other night clubs in the city, and described the Niakwa as "the nicest place I've worked." Her engagement there was to have lasted until the end of January. She was a big draw at the Niakwa, and business has fallen off since she left, Mrs. Reg Balsillie said in an interview. She and her husband book acts into the Niakwa, and Mr. Balsillie is Miss Sinclair's booking agent. "We turned away as many as 100 people a night. The room was not unruly in any way and never has been," Mr. Balsillie said. Her dancing is the same as you see on television. "Who are they (the-commission) to act as moralists?''. He resented her being turned out so soon 'before Christmas, when she and her husband, who works at a supermarket, have a 15-month-old girl £o support.  The Balsillies and Miss Sinclair have engaged lawyers" to fight the decision. On Dec. 8, Niakwa manager Nicholas Pyrch got a letter from commission secretary Louis Teillet It requested him to "terminate immediately" Miss Sinclair's performances, because they" were "creating bad behaviour" in the beverage room. Mr. Pyrch in an interview said the beverage room customers are a "wholesome crowd."