I ran into this press release from Environment Minister Rona Ambrose which calls on Canadians to celebrate Canadian Environment Week which runs until June 10th. The last quote puts things into perspective “I encourage Canadians to think about their impact on the environment and to act all year round to protect it. Let’s take this […] More »

I must admit, I was caught off-guard by this weekend’s “terror-takedowns” in Toronto. Despite all of the terrorism fear mongering these past few years, I’ve been of the (apparently naive) mindset that Canada wouldn’t be a target. The Toronto Star and CBC’s The Current have had some good coverage exploring what prompted seemingly normal, happy, […] More »

Carl Wilson at Zoilus has an entry about the Polaris Music Prize, a new Canadian music award born from the desire to recognize recordings on the basis of artistic merit instead of commercial success (fingers pointed at you, Juno Awards). The winner of this year’s Polaris, which counts albums released between June 2005 and May […] More »

What started out as a mild Saturday Night Live satire, i.e. the Ambiguously Gay Duo, has metamorphasized into a bona fide homosexual superhero/superheroine zeitgeist. Not one, but two significant superhero closet door splinterings have occured within the span of days. DC comics, announcing the newly revamped Batwoman as a full fledged queer, finally acknowledges that […] More »

Don’t know how other Torontonians felt about it, but being stuck in traffic for an hour while I tried to drop off my kids at daycare, and then struggling through the same smoggy traffic to get back to one of the kids when he fell ill made this middle-aged lefty mighty cranky with the illegal […] More »

Most people have heard this by now but Chapters/Indigo has pulled this month’s issue of Harper’s off its shelves. It seems that Art Spiegelman’s critique of the Danish Muhammad cartoons that angered many in the Muslim world is also too hot for the delicate sensibilities of management at Chapters. DB Scott over at the Canadian […] More »

A conversation on Saturday night during the second period intermission went like this: Him: The rest of Canada hates the Oilers. I hear in Toronto they’re turning off their TV sets because it’s the Oilers playing. Me: That’s ridiculous. Hockey is hockey. If you enjoy hockey, you keep watching, unless you are so wrapped up […] More »

Michael Geist secures an advanced copy of the Department of Canadian Heritage’s study to the Canadian economic impact of the copyright industries. Suprising to the recording industry’s hypothesis, the study’s findings contradict the long held assumption that Canadian copyright industry (defined in the report as music, movies, radio, television, publishing, theatre, software, and advertising services) […] More »

Krisztina Kun is a Vancouver-based writer and activist who got the chance to spend time in Caledonia on Monday while visiting her hometown of Hamilton. She wrote the following post about being on both sides of the standoff yesterday… Within minutes of waking yesterday, I was in the backseat of a speeding Saturn, heading down […] More »

It’s come to my attention (via placesforwriters.com) that nominations for Parliamentary Poet Laureate are now open. Before you run off and nominate yourself, tell us why you (or someone you know) could fill this esteemed position, which would allow you to write poetry for the Senate or the House, post “Poems of the Week” by […] More »

Some of you may remember a discussion that took place on these blog pages a few months ago about copyright defenders and advocates of the copyleft movement. Well, the pages of the current issue of This provide two perspectives (whether they are competing I’ll leave for you to decide) on the plight of writers and […] More »