This morning the Green Party of Canada announced that it has retained a lawyer to pressure Canadian broadcasters to include the Greens in future electoral debates (including the one rumoured to be announced on Friday). Up until now, the TV networks have always brushed off the Greens because they had no MP sitting in parliament. […] More »

An event that might be of interest to our Toronto readers: Our friends at Fuse Magazine are hosting a town hall meeting in Toronto on Wednesday night to discuss the recent round of federal arts and culture funding cuts. (In the interest of full disclosure, I’m personally involved in the group organizing the meeting, so […] More »

Today CBC Radio 2 launches its new format, a controversial repositioning of the national broadcaster’s commercial-free, all-music station. The overhauled lineup of programming reduces the amount of classical music and adds more jazz, pop, rock, folk, hip-hop — enough of a jumble, essentially, to make the station not really listenable for anyone. The changes have […] More »

A Toronto Labour Day parade from the early 1900s, shot by Yousuf Karsh It’s Friday afternoon and around our office, we’re all thinking about the upcoming long weekend. Labour Day, for many Canadians, is just another day off, the end of the summer, a chance to sleep in one last time before school starts up […] More »

It’s fair to say Barack Obama’s acceptance speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention in Denver will be a historic one. It’s the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech, and the venue has been moved to a local football stadium to accommodate 75,000 spectators. You don’t want to […] More »

A press release came in this afternoon saying that NDP leader Jack Layton is spending three days at the Democratic National Convention in Denver to talk to the Dems’ labour caucus, among others, and see if he can shake some important hands. Now, the NDP’s electoral standing in Canada isn’t exactly on par with the […] More »

Shia LaBeouf’s recent DUI arrest isn’t the only hot news item. There’s big news here at This Mag headquarters. We’ve hired Graham F. Scott as our new editor. Congratulations Graham! Graham has been a freelance writer and editor for the past three years, including a year as our columns editor. He has also worked as […] More »

Yes, it really is June already. So go ahead, check out the June Film Club Newsletter. If you’re in the Toronto area, mark this coming Wednesday on your calendar: there’s going to be a special benefit screening of Mystic Ball to support Burmese cyclone victims at 7pm at The Bloor Cinema. It’s just $10, and […] More »

Forget the old colonial powers. The country with surging interests in Africa is China. Photographer Paolo Woods has this fascinating photo essay on Chinese experts who work in Africa. That’s a nice looking golf course… just watch out for the mortars, and the suicide bombers and the friendly fire. The U.S. has big plans for […] More »

By Kalli Anderson On a Saturday night, in a supermarket in Montreal, Natalie Reis picks up an 89-cent can of peas and carrots. She pulls one of her original drawings–a grey-and-red sketch of birds in flight–out of her purse and wraps it around the can. She secures the drawing with a single piece of transparent […] More »

By Lindsay Kneteman It’s a tough world out there for a charity. In Canada, you’re competing against some 80,000 other organizations, and if you don’t have the budget for a big, slick campaign it’s easy to be overlooked. So we’ve decided to help the little guys out by spotlighting five registered Canadian charities that are […] More »