August 23, 2010
26 million hectares of forest, $17 billion, and one lonely bush pilot
For years, Joel Theriault has waged a losing battle against pesticide spraying in Northern Ontario forests. He’s made enemies in the logging business, the Ministry of Natural Resources—and even among his fellow environmentalists. What keeps him going? Illustration by Dushan Milic On a chilly afternoon in mid-June 2009, bush-pilot-turned-environmental-activist Joel Theriault is once again flying... [More >>]
June 1, 2010
Strapped for funds, Yellowknife’s prison has become a mental health ward
With just one overworked psychiatrist for the whole territory, the North Slave Correctional Centre has become a de facto psychiatric hospital. Stuck in legal limbo, dozens of prisoners wait—and then wait some more—for justice Inside Yellowknife’s courthouse, behind the plastic shield of the prisoner’s docket, Tommy is plucking his fingers: one, two, three, four, from pointer to pinky and... [More >>]
May 31, 2010
What Stephen Harper should really do to support global maternal health
G8 Leaders meet in L'Aquila, Italy, July 8, 2009. Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced on January 26 that he was going to use Canada’s Group of Eight presidency to push for an annual G8 summit agenda focused on women’s and children’s health. Former UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis said it best when he called the announcement an act of “chutzpah.” First of all,... [More >>]
May 17, 2010
Borneo experiment shows how saving the apes could save ourselves
A reforestation scheme in Borneo could radically reshape wildlife protection, land conservation, and indigenous stewardship—simultaneously. Sugar palms are one of the crops that make up the plantation. Photo by Shawn Thompson. Halfway around the world, on the eastern side of the island of Borneo, near the oil city of Balikpapan, a new tropical rainforest is being created out of what was once a... [More >>]
April 26, 2010
Don’t save the economy. Make a better one
The golden age of the welfare state wasn’t that golden. The real solution is economics that actually promotes equality Remember the good old days when Canadians used to think the government was supposed to help everyone share in economic prosperity and prevent anyone from shouldering the brunt of economic adversity? We thought we’d learned the bitter lessons about the perils of the free market... [More >>]
March 31, 2010
Capturing the Life of Helen Betty Osborne, in words and pictures
November 13, 1971, The Pas, Manitoba. Four young white men drive past Helen Betty Osborne, a 19-year-old Cree girl. They call for her to get in the car and party with them. “I think I heard a yes,” one man taunts. When she refuses, the men pull her into the car and drive off. Flip the page, to illustrated panels showing the RCMP knocking on her mother’s door, about to deliver the news of Osborne’s... [More >>]
March 11, 2010
Review: The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book by Gord Hill
In The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book, Vancouver-based writer Gord Hill blends his visual and literary talents to tell the story of aboriginal life since the arrival of Europeans in the Western Hemisphere in 1492. If the book’s title isn’t enough to tell you what perspective Hill, a member of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation, is taking, the names of the book’s three sections certainly will: Invasion,... [More >>]
February 17, 2010
Interview: sealskin clothing designer and lawyer Aaju Peter
Europe’s sealskin ban threatens her runway-ready apparel—and maybe the entire Inuit way of life Aaju Peter. Illustration by David Donald. A majority of the 27 member states of the European Union voted to ban the trade of seal product imports such as pelts, oil, and meat last July. The ban comes into effect in August 2010. Although the EU did allow a partial exemption for Inuit populations,... [More >>]
January 19, 2010
A modest proposal: turn all Aboriginal lands into the 11th province
Historic treaty boundaries between Canada and Aboriginal peoples. Not representative of any proposed outline for an Aboriginal province; vast areas of Canada have never been formally surrendered or ceded by Aboriginal peoples. Courtesy Ministry of Natural Resources. Click to Enlarge The Royal Proclamation of 1763 included a clause prohibiting British colonists from purchasing “Lands of the Indians,”... [More >>]
January 13, 2010
Olympic Countdown: Aboriginal groups clash with the Games — and with each other
B.C. Aboriginal groups are divided on the Olympic issue Four First Nations communities overlap Vancouver Olympic Sites from Vancouver to Whistler. British Columbia’s First Nations are divided in their support for the Olympics. On one side, the chiefs and band councils of four indigenous communities—the Lil’wat, Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh—have endorsed the Games and set up the Four... [More >>]
