While most Torontonians know about TIFF—the hugely publicized Toronto International Film Festival—very few have heard about TPFF, the Toronto Palestine Film Festival. Unlike TIFF, the TPFF isn’t attended by Hollywood stars, doesn’t receive much mainstream media coverage and has no paid staff. Despite these challenges, TPFF is an ambitious film fest that features over 40 […] More »

Make way, Homer Simpson—there’s a new Donut King in town: Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Choosing donuts over climate change deserves the title of King. King not only of donuts (as one critic called Harper) but the King of climate deniers. Last week, our Prime Minister skipped a day at the UN Climate Summit in New […] More »

[Editor’s note: EcoChamber is back after a short break while Emily Hunter was on assignment in the Alberta Tar Sands to see the devastation first hand. Her observations will appear at This.org and in the print edition soon.] The show must not go on. That is what activists are saying about the Toronto International Film […] More »

Above I’ve embedded Lacey’s Story, one of the films in the National Film Board’s Playing It Safe series. If you can’t see it, click here to watch it on the NFB website. Documentaries about drug use and life on the street can easily become depressing cautionary tales. The NFB’s website Playing It Safe avoids this […] More »

Above I’ve embedded a video made by Scott Thomas, design director of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential run, stumping for a book he’s working on called Designing Obama. And in classic Barack-the-vote style, he’s relying on a web-savvy, crowd-sourced, grassroots internet campaign to get it off the ground, requiring readers to collectively pledge the US$65,000 it […] More »

The Ontario Government is using single mothers to sell a proposed funding increase to legal aid the public, but lawyers aren’t buying it. “Almost 70 per cent of family legal aid cases involve women making $22,000 or less per year. Nearly all of these cases involve children. This significant investment is critical to ensuring the safety […] More »

Almost one year ago Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the currently contested President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, delivered his infamous speech at the U.N. General Assembly. Putting aside for a moment that the U.N. has failed its mandate to prevent wars between countries and, therefore, is rather debunked as an institution, it has also been a […] More »

I feel like I’ve been re-reading the same article all week. Politicians quoted in The Globe and Mail, National Post and others talk about this weekend’s Le Moulin à Paroles like it’s the last nail in Confederation’s coffin. “There was the death of a man. These were tragic events,” Intergovernmental Affairs Minister, Josée Verner told […] More »

Alan Turing, pioneer of the digital computer, codebreaking war hero, and godfather of geeks everywhere, got a posthumous apology yesterday — many years overdue — from the British government. Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued a statement acknowledging the government’s “appalling” treatment of Turing when it tried and convicted him of “gross indecency” based on his […] More »

In Salmon Arm, B.C., there’s been a long-standing fight over plans to build an enormous shopping centre directly on the floodplain of the Salmon River. Last fall, the city voted not to allow mall developer SmartCentres to build big box stores on this ecologically sensitive tract of land. Well, now we receive a report that […] More »

Today marks the first day of school. Millions of children in Ontario and Canada are going back to class, back to their teachers and subjects, back to their school routine. This is the first fall, ever, that I haven’t gone back to skool. Reflecting on the whole experience I feel a big nostalgic, even a […] More »