Marcia Ramírez is in for the fight of her life: suing the Toronto Stock Exchange for listing a company that it knew might cause her harm. In early December 2006, Ramírez was one of some 30-odd residents of the remote Intag valley in northwestern Ecuador who stood in the way of over 50 heavily armed […] More »

Dear Progressive Detective: I’m afraid of needles. Is it okay if I skip my flu shot? Sorry, but in the Progressive Detective’s opinion, belonephobia, the fear of needles, is no excuse for skipping this oh-so-important vaccination. The obvious reason for getting it is to avoid illness. While it’s easy to scoff at the flu, it’s […] More »

The fight for free speech is not the work of angels. Academics love Evelyn Hall’s famous saying, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” In the age of promiscuous online speech, the sentiment of two university protestors seems more apt: “Free speech for all. […] More »

The misbegotten “War on Drugs” has funnelled billions into the pockets of criminals, and drug use is higher than ever. We’re addicted to policy failure — time to kick the habit Shortly after Vancouver was named the host of the 2010 Olympics, Naomi Klein was seething about injustice again. “The Vancouver-Whistler Olympic bid presented the […] More »

Dying is the one thing that unites us all, yet we do it so badly. Allow us to die on our own terms Dying was so straightforward a few generations ago, or so it seems in gauzy retrospect. We stayed home, surrounded by supportive family; the doctor dropped by and perhaps prescribed some morphine, but […] More »

Quebec Superior Court judge André Denis made history on May 22, 2009, when he convicted Desiré Munyaneza of seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Munyaneza, he said, had “intentionally killed dozens” during the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and “raped several women and pillaged homes and businesses.” For the first time ever, a […] More »

On June 9, Nova Scotians elected the province’s first ever NDP government, lead by former Navy public-information-officer-turned-journalist-turned-lawyer Darrell Dexter. This caught up with the new 52-year-old premier about a month later, just after he had attended a Paul McCartney concert in Halifax. This: Did you meet McCartney? Dexter: I did. It was quite a highlight. […] More »

Nuclear power has always been controversial, but even green power sources like wind and hydro meet resistance from locals. When Nova Scotia entrepreneur Luciano Lisi unveiled a plan to blow 250 megawatts of wind-power into his province’s coal-based grid, he didn’t expect it to be this controversial. But his proposed wind-hydro hybrid project, involving 44 […] More »

For seven days in July, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission met in Gatineau, Quebec, to deliberate on the future of the Canadian internet. Until this summer, the CRTC took an essentially laissez-faire approach to the web: it was too new and too poorly understood to start carving out rules to govern it. But the […] More »

It hasn’t been easy being Alberta’s neighbour these last few years. While Canada’s economic wunderkind enjoyed double-digit growth, next-door Saskatchewan saw the near-disappearance of the family farm and watched 35,000 residents in five years flee to other provinces. So when the Conservative Saskatchewan Party swept to power in 2007, promising a $20,000 tuition rebate for […] More »

In which the author finds his lefty credentials sorely tested by one malodorous cat It’s hard enough to be a socially progressive, left-leaning, anti-globalization, conscientious sort in this world, but to be a socially progressive, left-leaning, anti-globalization, conscientious sort and be mildly inconvenienced? It’s too much to bear. As I write this, Toronto is several […] More »