UBC’s student union, the Alma Mater Society (AMS), filed a complaint with the United Nations this week accusing Canada and B.C. of violating the 1976 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. By signing this treaty, the AMS says, the Canadian government agreed to eventually make post-secondary education free and accessible to all. Article […] More »

There’s a scene in the Kenyan dance company Pamoja‘s new ballet, Konkrete City, where all I could feel was the hectic beat of downtown Nairobi, or Vancouver, or Toronto. The dancers—most of them handicapped—depicted the Central Business District, Kenya’s core of business towers and banks, during the rainy season. Walking, running and jumping; swinging arms, […] More »

Canada has been a hotspot for international climate activists this week. We’ve got Al Gore in Toronto, warning among other things that using tar sands oil takes away any advantages of greening our vehicle fleet. Then there’s Britain’s George Monbiot speaking this Saturday at the University of Toronto (2-4PM) on the “Countdown to Copenhagen: Who […] More »

My doctor and I sat there, blankly staring at one another, wondering where we both went wrong. I was perched beside his desk, asking for a prescription refill for my birth control. “You don’t need to ask me,” he kept saying. “Just call ahead, ask for what you’d like and come pick it up at […] More »

Alison Lee’s November-December 2008 This Magazine cover story, “The New Face of Porn” was chosen as one of 14 pieces to be published in Tightrope Books’ The Best Canadian Essays 2009. There are some great pieces of writing in there, and we’re thrilled that an essay that started in the pages of This is getting […] More »

A new generation of feminists are reclaiming porn, both as consumers and producers. A (very) intimate journey The first time I remember thinking critically about pornography, I was 15. It was the early 1990s, and my friend and I were going through a stack of discarded magazines, undertaking the well-loved teenage art of collage. Between […] More »

We may find out what retired General Rick Hillier knew about the alleged abuse of detainees after they were handed over to Afghan prisons by Canadian soldiers when he testifies before the parliamentary committee today. Hillier is a former NATO forces commander and was Canadian Chief of Defense Staff until last year. In his recently […] More »

In November 2005, I travelled to Iraq in violation of a Foreign Affairs travel advisory. It was my third trip. Four members of an international delegation, including myself, were kidnapped and held by Iraqi insurgents for four months. One member of our group, an American named Tom Fox, was killed two weeks before we were […] More »

To me, our Canadian identity has always seemed deeply rooted in our belief that as a country we do the “right thing.” We assumed for years that we were the moral compass of the globe and could do no wrong. But from where I’m standing, that reputation is being dragged through the mud and plenty […] More »

Sometimes it seems that no minority sits on a higher horse than people with disabilities—give an inch and they want a mile. I bet that’s what creator Ryan Murphy,  executive producer Brad Falchuck and the rest of the creative muscle behind Glee thought, in their most private moments, once they started hearing the complaints from […] More »

Marcia Ramírez is in for the fight of her life: suing the Toronto Stock Exchange for listing a company that it knew might cause her harm. In early December 2006, Ramírez was one of some 30-odd residents of the remote Intag valley in northwestern Ecuador who stood in the way of over 50 heavily armed […] More »