Best Canadian Essays 2010, the second annual collection of its kind from Tightrope Books, again includes a feature article that originally appeared in This Magazine. The collection includes Paul Gallant’s essay on the state of Canada’s gay rights movement in the wake of same-sex marriage legalization, “Over the rainbow“, from our September-October 2009 issue. Sounds […] More »

In today’s podcast I talked with Tomee Sojourner, a Montreal-based activist, educator, and consultant who concentrates mostly on workplace diversity. Tomee is also the founder of the Embracing Intersectional Diversity Project, a group that aims to connect people from different backgrounds and experiences so that they can talk openly and honestly about their differences and […] More »

[Editor’s note: This interview was conducted and published ahead of the final decisions about the fate of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. Eventually, the Pride Toronto board of directors decided to ban the phrase “Israeli Apartheid,” then retracted the decision after community outcry. See today’s blog post by Natalie Samson for a different—and considerably less sunny—outlook […] More »

You may have already heard something of Pride Toronto’s new sign-vetting policy,  its banning of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) from the parade, and its outlawing of the term “Israeli apartheid” from all Pride-related events.  Or about how, after weeks of public outrage, including the humiliation of having several Pride honourees return their awards, Pride […] More »

Have you been stuck inside working all week? Don’t worry, you haven’t missed much—just the largest and most disruptive set of mobilizations Toronto has seen in quite some time. The Toronto Community Mobilization Network spent six months coordinating with various groups to create Themed Days of Action, which took place between June 21 and June […] More »

Although Pride Toronto decided to reschedule its week-long festivities in light of the G20 circus coming to town, the committee for the AIDS Candlelight Vigil, an event associated with Pride Week, decided it would take advantage of the politically charged atmosphere. We took the opportunity to speak with Kay Roesslein, co-chair of the AIDS Candlelight […] More »

While the prime minister has been trying to do damage control for his G20 agenda, activists and organizers of all stripes have been busy building social justice movements. Sometimes movement-building involves bickering over listservs about who gets to the carry the banner, but sometimes it also involves holding massive, multi-day, multi-issue summits. Left Forum might […] More »

When the new study guide for immigrants applying for Canadian citizenship was published last November, a reporter asked Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney why there was no mention of Canada’s world-leading (but still-in-progress!) record on equal rights for gay and lesbian people. Here’s what Kenney said: “We can’t mention every legal decision, every policy […] More »

Among the remarkable details of Roman Polanski’s arrest last fall was the notably different reaction to it on the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean. While the North American media published explicit and condemnatory accounts of Polanski’s rape of a thirteen-year-old girl, in Europe the reaction was much more ambivalent. The governments of France and […] More »

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered athletes will find the first-ever Olympic pavilion welcoming them in 2010, a place at the Games to hang out, chill out, or come out. “The whole purpose behind Pride House” — actually a conference room at Whistler, B.C.’s Pan Pacific Hotel—“was really to create a dialogue about homophobia within sport,” […] More »

Queer rights are on trial left, right and centre this month. Here in Canada, an HIV-positive gay couple from the States has won their appeal against Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Until now, the majority of HIV-positive applicants have been excluded because of the excessive burden they posed on health services. This couple was initially rejected, […] More »