The Ashley Smith inquest has encouraged Ottawa to make the first steps towards improving the lives of mentally ill female inmates at provincial health centres. Recently, Steven Blaney, minister of public safety and emergency preparedness, launched a pilot mental health plan. The idea is to begin sending intensely ill offenders to treatment centres. The Royal […] More »

On Thursday, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) leaked an RCMP project which stated there are about 1,000 missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Later in the day, that number jumped to almost 1,200. In a 30 year span, 1,026 women and girls were murdered and 160 are missing. This is the highest count Canada […] More »

In early February, Canadians were introduced to Bill C-23. It proposed to be “fair”  but many, many critics argue it is something completely different. Much, if not all, of the act grants the conservative government more power. If passed, it would allow government officials to turn away those who do not have “adequate” identification (even […] More »

Ladies. We are so close. Our southern neighbours have taken another step towards recognizing the need for equal pay for women. This past Tuesday, president Obama vocalized his support for the Paycheck Fairness Act to be passed. The act points out the loopholes in the ironically titled Equal Pay Act and, if passed, would strive […] More »

Earlier this week, Canadian doctor Danielle Martin battled the rather patriotic U.S. Republican Senator Richard Burr at a subcommittee meeting in Washington, D.C. to discuss different health care systems around the world. Okay, maybe I’m being a little melodramatic here but it sure seemed like a battle—and Martin, the vice-president of the Women’s College Hospital […] More »

This Monday, Nova Scotia’s provincial party leaders  added their support to a national public inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada. Their support comes following the tragic death of Loretta Saunders, an Inuk woman originally from Labrador who was studying in Halifax. On February 17, Saunders was reported missing from her dorm at […] More »

Today at 2.45pm in Toronto, Vancouver, London, Ont., and Montreal, over 10,000 petitions, supported by over 70 organizations and societies, and representing over 1 million people, will be delivered to the immigration enforcement centre in Toronto. The petitions call for changes to immigration laws and policies that, according to the Immigration Legal Committee, “violates Canadian […] More »

In many ways, Alvena Little-Wolf Ear is a typical 9-year-old living in B.C. She goes to school, likes swimming, computers, painting her nails, and like so many other children her age, was the subject of bullying. For over 2 years, other kids at her school bullied her about her weight. It was so bad that […] More »

On Thursday, a somewhat well-known social media site called Facebook (perhaps you’ve heard of it?), announced an unexpected, but heartening update to its options and settings menu. In a move that has been praised by many LGBTQ and human rights groups, Facebook now allows its users to choose from over 50 different options to set […] More »

Standing in knee high snow in Queen’s Park yesterday, I witnessed my very first protest run. The event, which was organized by journalist and university instructor Margaret Webb, was to protest Russia’s anti-gay propaganda law, particularly in conjunction with the Sochi Olympics. I watched as the group of protestors ran around the designated route, holding […] More »

“There will be bad days.” That’s the start of this inspirational poem by Canadian spoken word artist Shane Koyczan.   The poem, appropriately called “Instructions for a Bad Day” offers some helpful advice on how to deal with those days when everything just won’t go right.  Now hopefully you’re not having a bad day, especially seeing […] More »