Stephen Harper began his eighth annual Northern Tour August 18, accompanied by his wife, Laureen, and a gaggle of ministers. The tour launched Sunday as the prime minister and his entourage landed in Whitehorse, where Harper spoke at a Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) BBQ and attended an afternoon picnic in Miles Canyon. In his […] More »

The Workers’ Action Centre (WAC) is calling for a raise in the Ontario minimum wage, and has been organizing demonstrations and events since early March. On Tuesday, the Toronto Star published a piece from Campaign to Raise the Minimum Wage members Navjeet Sidhu and Yvonne Kelly, in which the activists outline the myriad reasons an increase […] More »

The 2014 Winter Olympics may or may not take place in Sochi, Russia. The country has spent a reported $53 billion developing infrastructure for the Games, but a troubling new law banning “homosexual propaganda”—pride rallies or anything deemed “pro-gay”—could derail the event. Here is our round-up of who’s saying what about the Sochi debacle. The […] More »

You’ve probably heard the tune, though you may not even know it—it’s definitely a candidate for 2013’s song of the summer, alongside Miley Cyrus’ also contentious We Can’t Stop. It’s floating in the air on every patio, blasting from cruising cars, oozing along the sidewalks in the club districts. “#BLURREDLINES” billboards loom over this city. […] More »

It’s Pride Week in Vancouver, and to kick off celebrations July 29 the city unveiled an addition to the Davie Street Village streetscape. City workers painted all four crosswalks at the intersection of Davie and Bute in the rainbow flag late on Sunday night, and the big reveal happened early Monday morning hosted by Canada’s […] More »

Canadian Blood Services is now accepting blood donations from men who have had sex with men—but only if they haven’t done so in the past five years. The change took effect July 22, and marks a drastic departure from the organization’s previous policies concerning blood donation from the MSM category of donor, a blanket term used to […] More »

Here at This Magazine we’re hard at work on our Corporate Hall of Shame issue (coming in September!), an annual roundup of shady company dealings, corruption, lies, and a lot more. It can be pretty depressing around the office – in addition to all of the above, we’re also researching stories on environmental degradation, animal […] More »

From July 5 to 7, the RadFem Rise Up! conference was held in Toronto. The conference was controversial—the radical feminist movement and its affiliate Deep Green Resistance (DGR) have been accused of transphobia because of their push for female-only safe space, which excludes trans women. Originally scheduled at Beaver Hall, an artist co-operative in downtown […] More »

The “Hey girl…” feminist Ryan Gosling meme was huge—and the author, Danielle Henderson, even landed a book deal. We’ve been following some other feminist Tumblrs and Twitters. Here are some posts from our favourites: *Warning: working knowledge of Taylor Swift lyrics required* We are never ever ever ever / Asking for it — FeministTaylorSwift (@feministtswift) […] More »

Transgender performance artists Lexi Sanfino and Nina Arsenault were arrested after a WestJet flight June 20. Sanfino caused a disturbance, strutting down the airplane aisle topless after a flight attendant rudely asked the friends for makeup tips: “You know, because you used to be guys, right?” according to the Toronto Star, though the Huffington Post […] More »

In a stunning display of common sense over corporate interest, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 13 that human genes can’t be patented. The case centred on controversial Myriad Genetics, the (now former) patent-holder of the gene mutation responsible for hereditary breast cancer. Perhaps, like many others, you first heard about the gene mutation after […] More »