Day 4

This morning, we woke up bright and early to catch the subway from Wellesley subway station to Union Station to visit the CN Tower. It is a communications and observation tower 625.09 metres above sea level, and for 30 years, until 2007, it held the world record as the tallest freestanding structure.

As you could imagine we felt rather giddy at the top! The glass you see us standing on, (in the photo below) is 342 metres above the ground and can withstand the weight of 14 hippos, which was a welcome reassurance.

What an incredible view of an incredibly large city!

We then walked across the square and visited Ripley’s Aquarium, which had an incredible array of sea creatures such as sawfish, green back turtle, squirrelfish, and nurse shark. Our favourite part was the tunnels through the aquarium which allowed you to get up close to the marine animals and experience what it would like to be underwater with them. We even got to touch a white spotted bamboo shark!

A prevailing theme throughout the exhibits was climate change and it’s effects on marine flora and fauna, a very topical and important issue at the moment.

We then went for lunch and topped it off with some ice-cream made using liquid nitrogen. The low temperature of the liquid nitrogen allowed the ice-cream to be prepared in minutes and resulted in a delicious and smooth consistency.

Afterwards, we had a stroll up Yonge Street and went into some local shops.

In the evening we met Dr Markwell and Mr Markwell at the Royal Canadian Military Institute in downtown Toronto where we enjoyed an in depth discussion on bioethics and its application in both research and clinical practice. We are, under the supervision of Dr Markwell, completing the TCPS2 on line certification programme for training in the international norms of ethical behaviour in human research.

We discussed, and prepared for, our upcoming visit to the Gunning Group at University of Toronto Mississauga and the application of an ethical approach to the Scientific Method. Dr Markwell is the Chair of Bioethics at the university in Ottawa and an internationally known bioethicist and clinical consultant.

Mr Markwell then presented us with our certificates marking our selection for, and participation, in the programme. We were treated to a delicious 3 course meal by our generous hosts. The food was excellent and we thoroughly enjoyed meeting Dr Markwell. It was a fantastic end to the day.