[This was meant to auto-post yesterday, but didn’t, for some reason. So it’s kind of “WTF Thursday” today…] Reporters sans frontières has now waded into the mire that is the lock-out of employees at Le Journal de Montréal. Unlike many public figures, who have thrown their hats in the union’s ring, RSF’s secretary-general, Jean-François Julliard, sided […] More »

For a playwright from Toronto, creating a play about Canada’s North is a daunting task. How do you talk about a culture that, though Canadian, is as foreign as one from the other side of the world? How do you approach difficult issues like suicide when you’re not just an outsider, but also a member […] More »

One of the perks of attempting to forge a career from your home office as a writer is the amount of time you’re able to just sit back and read. I’ve convinced myself that this is “research”, but lately I’ve been reading almost everything, including, I’ll admit, trash. Which is how I came to crack […] More »

Nearing mid-December, I arise to Toronto’s first snowfall—though to my Christmasy disappointment, an unimpressive slop of wet snow and rain greeted the city’s drivers and transit riders with delays and headaches. The symptoms are similar for citizens rallying in Copenhagen this week, though for different reasons. An annual Christmas letter from relatives proved that November […] More »

[Editor’s note: Emily Hunter is in Copenhagen, Denmark for the next two weeks covering the Copenhagen Climate Summit, and will be sending us updates about what’s going on. Check back daily for her updates.] COPENHAGEN, DENMARK — The negotiations have begun over our climate future here in Copenhagen. Global leaders may decide in the next […] More »

“For those who claim a deal in Copenhagen is impossible, they are simply wrong.” – – Achim Steiner, Director, United Nations Environment Programs Yesterday marked the beginning of the International Climate Change discussions in Copenhagen. More than any other previous international agreements, so much emphasis has been put on this particular forum as it is widely […] More »

Last Wednesday, the following ‘letter to the editor’ appeared in Toronto’s Now Magazine: Disabled stay home I am a person with a disability who does not use Wheel-Trans, as others need it more and my needs have been better met by riding the subway, which is conveniently located half a block down my street. It’s […] More »

Twenty-years ago, Marc Lépine strolled into the Université de Montréal’s engineering school, L’École Polytechnique, armed with a 223-calibre Sturm-Ruger rifle and murdered fourteen young women. Lépine’s callous rampage was motivated by his hatred for women, whom he held responsible for ruining his life. Opening fire in one classroom, Lépine, only twenty-five at the time, shouted […] More »

Canada has a problem: since the early 1980s, over 500 Aboriginal women have been either murdered or reported as missing. It’s a shocking figure that’s motivated a pair of self-identified “survivors of the sex industry” to form the Coalition Against Violence Everywhere, an organization dedicated to stopping the violence by challenging the common narrative that […] More »

Greenpeace predicts world leaders will be making a big apology in 11 years if they don’t step up at the Copenhagen climate summit next week. A new line of giant ads in the Copenhagen airport features Harper, Obama, and 6 other serious looking, digitally aged world leaders saying, “I’m sorry. We could have stopped catastrophic […] More »

I came out of Tuesday night’s Munk Debate on Climate Change feeling kind of funny. Given that NASA scientists and others tell us we have about seven years to cap global greenhouse gas emissions before “runaway climate change”—and the next couple weeks may establish whether that happens or not—it strikes me that a debate about […] More »