The Claim DivaCup is a reusable, silicone menstrual cup that claims to be an “environmentally responsible” product that is the “most clean and convenient method of feminine hygiene protection.” But how green can the manmade silicone product be? The Investigation DivaCup, like other brands of reusable menstrual cups, works by collecting menstrual flow in a […] More »

Birthplace to some of the continent’s most varied and breathtaking landscapes, Kenya is also facing one of the highest deforestation levels in the world. Between 1990 and 2005 alone, the country lost 500,000 acres of its indigenous forests. Famous for its white beaches and warm ocean, Kenya’s infamous coast is particularly hard-hit. Faced with few […] More »

The chain of events late Monday night that ended in the death of Toronto cyclist Darcy Allan Sheppard—during an altercation with former Ontario MPP Michael Bryant’s car—are terrible and sad to behold. The news spread like wildfire yesterday and the local and national media descended en masse to report every detail. One such detail (among […] More »

In March 2008, when the invasion of Iraq by George W. Bush’s “coalition of the willing” marked its fifth anniversary, Canadian media outlets were in a self-congratulatory mood: “Canada isn’t involved” there, one reporter wrote. “The further we get away from the actual date, the better Canada’s decision to not get involved with the U.S. […] More »

So much for that buyer’s market. After it appeared that the balance of power in the real estate relationship had finally swung back to the buyer after almost a decade in the seller’s favour, home prices in most major markets in Canada have resumed their seemingly inexorable climb. According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, […] More »

The September-October 2009  issue of This Magazine should now be in subscribers’ mailboxes (subscribers always get the magazine early, and you can too), and will be for sale on your local newsstand coast-to-coast this week. All the articles in the issue will be made available online in the weeks ahead, though, so keep checking back […] More »

Alice Munro, one of the giants of Canada’s literary scene, has always been a tremendously sensitive and humane writer; in turning down yet another nomination for the prestigious Giller Prize, she’s proven to be an equally sensitive and humane cultivator of Canadian writing talent. Having already won the Giller twice—for The Love of a Good […] More »

I met you in a hostel in Rennes. The weather was humid and this made the door stick: I threw my weight against it and fell into the room. Your pink sandals and your pack were lying in a corner and you were there, too: asleep. Eyes turned toward the window. I had to walk […] More »

For Toronto’s “Making Room” art show in 2006, Amy Lam and Jon McCurley—the duo who call themselves Life of a Craphead— erected a bed sitting on a couch. The couch was large and blue and the bed sat as a human would, folded at the waist, with two wooden legs on the ground. It looked […] More »

The drought in Northern Kenya this year is severe. Farah Olad, the Deputy Chief of Party of Education for Marginalized Children of Kenya (EMACK), an organization which works with Somali pastoral communities, tells me grey is the “color of death” in this rural region. And the whole landscape is grey: from the ground to the […] More »

Above we’ve embedded the live stream of today’s Citizen Media Rendezvous taking place in Montreal, sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada’s Citizenshift initiative. The segment above features four speakers: Véronique Marino (INIS) Geraldine Cahill (The Real News Network) David Beers (The Tyee) Laurent Mauriac (Rue 89) The second panel of speakers, above, featured […] More »