September-October 2015
With the upcoming election, Canada is set to take a different path—if we want it to. But to what new direction? To answer that question, we first decided to look back over the past nine years of Conservative Canada. While we didn’t have space to examine every aspect of policy (which could, in itself, fill an entire book), we did pick 10 areas that we believe are worth reviewing to help choose a path forward. So if the cute kitten didn’t help, get ready to dive in as we review the Conservative government’s track record. From balanced budgets to immigration to women’s rights, we examine how 10 key Canadian issues have fared after nearly a decade of Conservative leadership …
When the cure is worse
Canada’s so-called Indian hospitals were depressing places that segregated, abused and even experimented on aboriginal patients. Gary Geddes speaks to those who were there about their long and painful legacy
Gary Geddes
The first image: a small child in striped pyjamas, three years old, peering through the bars of a crib, directly into the lens of the camera. There’s intelligence in her eyes, but no indication of pleasure or recognition. Just a quiet, cautious curiosity. She’s holding a naked, hairless, rubber doll. Behind her, off-kilter on […]
Tories in review: Immigration
And last in our Tories in Review series, Nathaniel Basen examines immigration policies, the closing of Canada's borders and the removal of basic rights
Nathaniel Basen
IT’S FROM BEHIND THE PLEXIGLAS BARRIER of the visitor’s cubicle that I wait for Glory Anawa. I’m at the Immigration Holding Centre in Toronto—or, as Anawa and her two-year-old son Alpha have called it since February 2013, home. In front of me, etched in the glass separating visitor and prisoner, is that same word, HOME, […]
Tories in review: aboriginal rights
Ninth in our Tories in Review series, we look at Stephen Harper's track record on Aboriginal rights
This Magazine Staff
IN 2007, after just over one year in power, Stephen Harper’s federal Conservatives dealt a major blow to Canada’s aboriginals—the first of many. That year, the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a non-binding international agreement designed to define worldwide human rights standards for Indigenous peoples. Canada, along with the […]
Tories in review: women’s rights
Gender Block columnist Hillary Di Menna investigates how women's rights & issues have fared under the Conservatives
Hillary Di Menna
THE SUN HITS the back of my neck as I kneel over my poster board. It’s a hot summer afternoon in June and I’m colouring with markers, shared with the hands of girls decades my junior, helping with childcare at a sex worker solidarity rally. We’re at Toronto’s Allan Gardens, the day’s setting for lunch, […]
Tories in review: balanced budget
Deconstructing the myth of the balanced budget
Nathaniel Basen
THERE IS NO REASON for the federal budget to be balanced at any particular time, argues Jim Stanford, an economist at Unifor and author of Economics for Everyone. The cartwheels necessary to balance Canada’s federal budget, he maintains, actually ensure slower growth and smaller future surpluses. It could, in short, harm the economy—not boost it. […]
Tories in review: LGBTQ rights
Today in our Tories in Review series, Larkin Schmiedl looks at nine years of attacks on LGBTQ rights in Canada
Larkin Schmiedl
OVER THE PAST SIX YEARS, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has—surprisingly—become an outspoken champion of gay rights worldwide. In 2009, Harper arranged a private meeting with Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni to urge him to drop a controversial law that would imprison homosexuals for life. In 2011, Immigration Minister John Baird not only launched a pilot program […]
Tories in review: disabilities
We examine Stephen Harper and friends' track record on disability rights. Hint: It's not great
This Magazine Staff
IN 2007, the federal government signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Ratified in the House of Commons several years later in 2010, the convention recognizes the rights, dignity, and worth of those with disabilities, while providing a framework for a high-quality, equitable life. This is all great stuff—and yet, the […]
Tories in review: environment
Larkin Schmiedl examines Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party's dismal environmental track record, full of broken promises and missed opportunities for a greener Canada
Larkin Schmiedl
WHEN IT COMES TO THE ENVIRONMENT, Stephen Harper doesn’t have a hidden agenda—he’s always been upfront about his healthy-industry-over-healthy-Earth policies. In 2006, for instance, in his first speech outside Canada after he was elected as prime minister, he called Canada an “emerging energy superpower,” suggesting his intention to expand oil sands production. “And that has […]
Tories in review: Information and transparency
Sam Juric examines the Conservative's battle to curb Canadians' access to information and the scary fight to create a transparency-free government
Sam Juric
HERE ARE JUST A FEW of the things that keep James Turk up at night: Unapologetic fear mongering; trampling over fundamental civil rights; limiting access to information; an invasive gaze cast over Canadians protesting in public, leading to their arrest; an iron fist that limits Canadians’ ability to move freely across borders; the introduction of […]
Tories in review: The North
We ask: Does Stephen Harper's professed love for Canada's North runs any deeper than his annual photo op tour?
Rhiannon Russell
THERE ISN’T MUCH OF A GROWING SEASON in Old Crow, the Yukon’s northernmost community. Yet a vegetable garden has flourished there for the past three years, thanks to the efforts of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation and funding, in part, from the territorial government. In June, residents planted cauliflower, garlic, kale, cabbage, onions, potatoes, lettuce, […]
Tories in review: Islamophobia
In our new issue, we examine how 10 key Canadian issues have fared after nearly a decade of Conservative leadership. First up: Hana Shafi on how Islamophobia has festered in the past nine years under Stephen Harper
Hana Shafi
SIX YEARS AGO, then 16-year-old Urooba Jamal was walking home from school in Surrey, B.C. with her two friends, one of whom was wearing hijab. Suddenly, she felt something hit her leg. It was a rock. Then came another and another—more whizzed past her. The culprits were a group of boys, likely no older than […]