Interviewed by Takara Small

Our second interview was with Rick Carroll - a frequent photo contributor to CBCnews.ca. We asked Rick to tell us a bit about himself:

"First and foremost I am a Canadian and I carry that label with an incredible amount of pride.
I love this country, its people and all of its diversity. In every sense of the words, I am your Average Joe.

For years I worked as a technician in Ottawa, my hometown, while constantly tinkering in photography. Eventually, photography and my passion for it ... became a priority. I am a self-taught photographer with over two decades of learning, yet there's still so much to learn."

Interviewed by Takara Small

Another year has come and gone, along with the first decade of the 21st century.

We want to celebrate by sharing with you comments from bloggers who have contributed to CBCNews.ca throughout 2009.

We scoured the CBC online community to find two contributors who have taken the time to voice their opinions about a multitude of subjects and asked for their feedback on the events that shaped 2009 and the decade.

Here's Ian Kasper had to say:

Submitted by Caroline Lee

Saturday was the last day of the negotiations, and emotions were running high. The night before, the Canadian Youth Delegation held a wrap-up meeting, where we contemplated accomplishments, failures, and personal reflections from the past two weeks.

Members of our group, who I now consider to be like a new family to me, expressed common messages of disappointment and frustration in working within this machine of the international negotiation process, coupled with a government that continues not to represent the voice of young people.

Submitted by Daniel T'seleie

So I'm sitting here in the new NGO workspace in downtown Copenhagen. They've just completed the Fossil of the Year ceremony; a dubious honour bestowed by over 400 NGOs on the country that has done the most to block progress. Who won? Canada, of course.

We're downtown because, like most of the 18,000 civil society representatives, we've essentially been kicked out of the UN conference. By "civil society" I mean youth delegations, trade unions, indigenous representatives, NGOs, faith groups, and pretty much any citizen who cares enough about the outcome to make the trek to Copenhagen.

We were pretty upset with this development because it meant we could no longer attend the daily briefings with Canadian negotiators. These are essential for any Canadian who cares about the outcome of this conference.

Fortunately, we have some friends on the inside. A few members of the NWT Legislature are on the Canadian delegation, are still inside the conference, and graciously agreed to ask questions on behalf of the Canadian Youth Delegation (CYD).

Submitted by Alex Doukas

Yesterday, 10 Canadian youth joined with 20 other youth from around the world to participate in a sit-in at the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen. Our message was that we wanted a fair, ambitious and binding deal from our world leaders at the climate talks, and we would accept nothing less.

Submitted by Kimia Ghomeshi

Canadian youth do a silent lie-in to express their frustration towards the Canadian government's recently leaked climate plan. Submitted by Adam Scott.

As of yesterday, civil society participation at the Copenhagen summit was drastically reduced, with only 15,000 of the approximately 40,000 accredited individuals admitted to the conference.

This happened during the most important days of the summit, when ministers arrived from around the world with heads of state expected to arrive shortly thereafter.

Thousands of non-governmental organization observers have only just arrived in Copenhagen. They were welcomed with the disappointing news that they might have two to three days at most to participate in the conference.

Submitted by Daniel T'seleie

An activist dressed as a clown walks next to a Danish policeman during a protest for climate change in Copenhagen on Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2009. (Anja Niedringhaus/Associated Press)

I'd like to set the scene of the negotiations for those of you back in Canada. They are being held in the Bella Centre, a very large building that can be difficult and time intensive to navigate. This week, the centre will hold about 20,000 people, which makes it as big as Yellowknife.

It's a fancy venue, but it stinks. Not just figuratively. I swear wafts of sewage reach my nose at random times in random places.

Hoax press releases circulated earlier today claiming that Canada had committed to drastic greenhouse gas emission cuts.

Read more

It's unclear who is behind the prank. One report in a Toronto Star blog temporarily linked the Canadian Youth Delegation to the hoax but took down the allegation later in the day.

Submitted by Caroline Lee

Today, I joined 100,000 other citizens of the global community to demonstrate in the streets of Copenhagen, calling on world leaders to take bolder action on climate change. An ocean of people stretching farther than anyone could see waved messages such as "Bla bla bla...ACT NOW" and "There is no Planet B."

There was something powerful being in the midst of this commanding yet peaceful movement, which sent a loud and clear message to leaders that lack of progress on the climate change issue is unacceptable. It was a refreshing break, situated halfway in the middle of negotiations full of formalities, jargon and business suits.

People are rising up to call on our governments to do more. David Miller, mayor of Toronto, marched alongside us today. Back home, mayors, premiers, industry representatives, academics, indigenous peoples and youth are all sending a unified message of stronger action on climate change.

Submitted by Kimia Ghomeshi

Negotiations have come to a halt during the last few days at Copenhagen.

For the thousands of observers here including NGOs and youth, I've seen a wave of emotions from complete hopelessness to a reinvigorated resistance towards industrialized countries that continue to be blockers.

The conference halls are filled with an air of confusion, anticipation and desensitization until a spontaneous action led by impacted communities would remind everyone what we are fighting for in Copenhagen: survival.

Submitted by Alex Doukas

Imagine that we're into the final days of the UN climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, little progress has been made, and the official representatives from Tuvalu (a small island state under threat from global warming) lead a walkout to protest the negotiating process.

It's certainly believable, and not even unheard of at past negotiations.

Now imagine that the walkout happens on just the third day of negotiations, it's highly disruptive, and that it's just the tip of the iceberg. That's the kind of energy and escalation we're seeing in Copenhagen — the kind of rising tide of frustration around climate injustice that has people pre-emptively comparing Copenhagen to the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle a decade ago.

Submitted by Caroline Lee

The idea of a climate change activist traveling abroad to attend a climate change event often raises serious scepticism. I have been questioned numerous times: wouldn't climate change be less of a problem if people like you just stayed home?

I argue, no.

In my own moral compass, I undertake actions that I believe if everyone in the world took, this would be a fair and just place. I am fully supportive of every young person in the world travelling abroad to fight for a meaningful cause, where we can send the message directly to the people who make decisions in this world and catalyze real change.

Submitted by Daniel T'Seleie

What's the carbon footprint of a cigarette? Yes, I smoke. I know I shouldn't because my mother routinely tells me so. But I like to think smoking is carbon neutral, so I'm only hurting myself (and my poor mother).

One thing I like about Copenhagen is that, unlike Yellowknife, I can buy unfiltered cigarettes and all the public garbage cans are outfitted with ashtrays. The only Canadian city I've recently visited with both these fine qualities is Calgary, which seems strange to me considering it's the stronghold of the tar sands beast that is preventing Canada from meeting our Kyoto commitments.

For the next two weeks, four members of a Canadian Youth Delegation attending the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen will be blogging for CBC's Citizen Bytes. The youth are there to deliver the message that they won't let Canada, one of the world's biggest per-capita polluters, threaten the success of the negotiations. But they'll also be writing here on a daily basis about their behind-the-scenes experiences. Here are their first impressions of the Danish capital.

Bio: Parvez Akhtar is a 46-year-old mechanical engineer from Bangladesh. He was recognized as an engineer in training by Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) and is attending a bridging program at Ryerson University. He has lived in Toronto since August 2006 and is working towards his Professional Engineering (P.Eng) license.

My take: I applied in January 2001 to immigrate to Canada.

With my education and previous work experience, the job hunt was a hard ride. I was never invited for an interview. And settling in a new country with family was really tough. Money was flooding out instead of dropping in. Being helpless, I took a security job to pay the bills.

Submitted by Rebecca-Anne Hickey

There is certainly no shortage of articles in the news about the severe lack of doctors in Canada; general practitioners, specialists — you name it, we're short of it.

As Canadians living in a 'small world' I'm sure all of us know, or at least know of somebody who does not have a GP. The Canadian Medical Association says one in ten Canadians do not have a family doctor and that GPs are desperately needed in Canada.

We have also all heard the stories from friends and family, or perhaps have even experienced ourselves the horrendous wait times that we all face for specialist appointments, medical imaging scans, and even more shockingly, GP appointments.

As a medical student myself studying in the UK, hearing these stories really gets my blood boiling.

Let me explain why.