If you want Google Maps directions from Whapmagoostui, Quebec to Parliament Hill, Ottawa, our trusted search engine doesn’t know what to do with itself. That wasn’t the case for six Cree First Nation youths, who arrived at the capital on Monday. They trekked the 1,600km distance with the help of a guide to show their […] More »

Over 30 years ago, the pro-choice movement in Canada was at its peak. In 1970 the Vancouver Women’s Caucus travelled across the country as part of the Abortion Caravan. Stopping in various cities and towns on their way to Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the women spent their evenings hearing the stories of other women so […] 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 »

When the last parliament dissolved for the 2011 Federal Election, we profiled five bills that died when the writ was dropped. Four of those — cheaper HIV drugs for the developing world, protecting trans rights, improving water for First Nations, and improving decorum in the House — were real losses (the last, a painfully flawed […] More »

Canada’s public life has been diminished today by the death of Jack Layton, leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition and of the New Democratic Party. Known to millions of Canadians simply as “Jack,” Layton embodied the kind of decent, energetic, principled, and optimistic political leadership that so many of us wish to see more of […] More »

The camera rolled as a three-drug cocktail was shot into Andrew Grant DeYoung’s arm, there in a prison in Jackson, Georgia. It captured De Young as the injection reached his veins and killed him, thus carrying out his sentence, and granting him a spot in the history books as the first man in America in […] More »

With the House of Commons set to start back up again on June 2, Canadians will get their fist glimpses of the 41st Parliament. Given that the tumultuous campaign period, dramatic results, and overload of post-poll dissection nearly a month behind us, it may seem as though all the excitement in Ottawa has died down. […] More »

It was only a few years ago that elections in Canada were mostly predictable. For a few solid years, we could bet on Liberals, and some NDP candidates, sweeping the country’s biggest cities. We knew the Conservatives would sweep Alberta, take most of Saskatchewan and dominate much of British Columbia. In Quebec, the Bloc Québécois […] More »

Newly elected NDP MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau, who is suddenly embroiled in one of the smallest political scandals ever recorded, would do well to learn the prevailing lesson of our most recent electoral proceedings, namely that even widely covered scandals do not have a major impact on polling results. More »

Last night’s election was extraordinary in more ways than we would have thought possible a few weeks ago. Canadian politics has been shaken up in a serious, permanent way, and this election will be studied for years to come. As we start to digest the result and its consequences, there are some clearly identifiable changes […] More »

The debate happens tonight. Canadians across the country will be gathered in pubs and nestled over Twitter — is the hashtag #db8 or #db841? — to watch the leaders duke it out. This year’s debate will include a new format, with six-minute one-on-one debates, followed by a 12-minute round for all four leaders. There’s been much […] More »