The book El Mal introduces Argentinians to the man who controls much of their freshwater: Barrick founder and chair Peter Munk. Recently published in Spanish, the book’s full title roughly translates as “The Evil.” The book describes Canadian mining company Barrick Gold as a “virtual third country” that laws created at its behest and pays […] More »

There’s no denying that, in many parts of the world, women’s rights are in a bad state. There are hundreds of organizations and thousands of activists working to change that fact. But the persecution of women throughout certain parts of the world has, in the last decade, been co-opted as a pretext for military occupation, […] More »

When climate change first started showing up in the news, people feared Canada’s North would literally melt away. As scientists debate and differing opinions—and confusion—abound, that initial panic seems to have ebbed. Amongst nearly everybody, of course, but the Inuit. After a lifetime of observation and generations of knowledge, Inuit elders say the melt is […] More »

Recently, Google ruined my life. I may be exaggerating slightly, given that all they did was redesign and tweak Google Reader, one of their many services that I use daily and for which I pay nothing. But Reader, an admittedly niche product that lets you read articles from many websites in one place, has become […] More »

In 1999, filmmaker Xstine Cook was living in Ramsay, an inner-city working class Calgary neighbourhood, when Gloria Black Plume, an aboriginal social worker, was murdered in an alleyway five houses away from her home. Cook now lives on the property where the murder took place. She felt the need to memorialize Black Plume’s life and […] More »

On our first night in Barcelona, my boyfriend—fuelled by adrenaline and sangria—got to talking about blood lust. It’s just a fact of life, he explained between bites of his burger, that both men and beasts crave violence in the name of honour. I rolled my eyes. A week later, irony not lost on me, we […] More »

Yes, we must stop killing and eating animals. Vegetarians give up meat for various reasons—out of compassion for animals, to be healthy or to be more environmentally friendly. And now vegetarianism is more accessible than ever, says David Alexander, Executive Director of the Toronto Vegetarian Association. “There’s simply no compelling reason,” he believes, “for vegetarians […] More »

On the second Saturday of every July, the Haudenosaunee people march across the border at Niagara Falls to remind North America of a message: “We are not American. We are not Canadian. We are Haudenosaunee.” Harry Doxtator can remember attending the ceremony as a toddler, and now sits on the Border Crossing Committee as the […] More »

It’s two and a half days since the magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, 2010. The Adventist Hospital, an enormous white building in a formerly leafy suburb of Port-au-Prince, now looks more like a war zone. Thousands of people are camped around the hospital in need of urgent medical care—mangled limbs, bleeding head […] More »

Paul Frazer is an invisible Canadian. He doesn’t live in Canada, and hasn’t for more than two decades. But he works for us, and he represents us abroad, and he holds sway over the leaders and big businesses that affect our lives. In many ways, he has power over the powerful. But here at home, […] More »

The hockey world was shocked this summer when three tough guys (one just retired) died unexpectedly, one from an overdose of alcohol and pills and two others by suicide. When Wade Belak, a popular, seemingly happy former Toronto Maple Leaf hanged himself while in Toronto for the taping of CBC’s The Battle of the Blades, […] More »