UN condemns Canada’s lack of food security. If I’d pursued political cartooning instead of sociology, I would be sketching a picture of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney with his mouth full of cheap imported bananas. He’d have one hand over the mouth of UN rapporteur Olivier De Schutter, and the other  distributing food aid “to starving […] More »

On May 10, the annual anti-abortion rally was held on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. This year’s event has come at a very interesting time in the Canadian abortion debate. Only weeks earlier, Stephen Harper denounced fellow Tory Stephen Woodworth’s bid to reopen the debate in the House of Commons. Woodworth, a Conservative backbencher, recently proposed […] More »

About 200 protesters gathered on King Street today as Enbridge held their annual general meeting inside the King Edward Hotel. The mass of protesters had congregated on the street to voice their opinions on the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which would stretch 1,172 kilometres from Bruderheim, Alta., to the port of Kitimat, B.C. The proposed […] More »

A couple of weeks ago, I came home to my worst nightmare. I turned on my television and nothing happened. No picture, no noise, not even some static or a TV test pattern. I was overcome with fear. No Chuck Bass. No feeling better about my evening wine consumption via the drunks on Intervention. No […] More »

After Patrick Furey, a heartbroken and bullied gay student, hangs himself in his bedroom, there is no minute of silence, no special assembly. Instead, his school’s closeted principal forbids staff to share any information, fearing a teen suicide would damage the school’s reputation and possibly spawn copycats. Furey’s death may happen in the first few […] More »

Unless you have been living under a fake rock beside a fake lake, chances are you’ve heard about this G8/G20 business in some way, shape, or form. The reasons why many people are protesting, however, may not be as clear. That’s probably because there isn’t any single issue uniting all protesters. And, despite what you […] More »

So we promised you a live video stream of the panel discussion tonight (http://this.org/speakup). Unfortunately, technical difficulties are going to prevent that. We’ll have the video for you tomorrow, but int the meantime, you can follow as we liveblog the talk here: http://2th.is/cjgR9J Sorry for the inconvenience, we’re disappointed too! But we’ll do our best […] More »

Full text of the liveblog: 2:18 PM: We’re watching the Throne Speech online here: bit.ly 2:19 PM: At the moment the Governor General has arrived outside Parliament and is doing various martial duties. 2:20 PM: Please feel free to comment and add your thoughts as things go along. 2:21 PM: CTV is reporting that the […] More »

Things are not going well in Copenhagen. I find nothing positive to report from any of my contacts at the conference. It seems that delegates are fighting on the behalf of unnamed interests—those who want to maintain their greed and the status quo. There is a great rift between the wishes of the people of […] More »

Most tax payers in Canada don’t know where their tax money goes and don’t have any direct control over what their money is spent on. While many of us hope that the majority of our taxes are invested in social programs, healthcare, infrastructure, education etc., the stark reality is that our taxes also go to […] More »

It occurred to me that this retro CBC special from 1987 on organic farming could just about have been broadcast yesterday. Methods of organic farming, including building up the soil using compost and covercropping, remain essentially the same, and so does the message: keep it simple and local. If you’re a gardener or farmer, checking […] More »