On the campaign trail, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau heartily assured supporters of his commitment to reform Canada’s electoral system and “make every vote count.” Once in office, though, Trudeau’s enthusiasm fizzled out and no legislation was pushed through Parliament. Nonetheless, the Liberal government introduced Bill C-76 this April, which aims to overhaul the current Canada […] More »

Hilary Black is tired. “Really fucking tired,” actually, she says. She’s been doing this—fighting prohibition, advocating for the rights of medical cannabis patients—for 21 years. And now she’s at the outset of an entirely new chapter: She is in charge of the social responsibility and patient advocacy arm of Canopy Growth Corporation, one of the […] More »

An overlooked aspect of recreational cannabis legalization in Canada is the privacy implications of the distribution systems, especially in the online environment. The privacy and security risks are substantial, and protecting the online rights of consumers needs more attention. Highly sensitive personal information will be exposed to the risks of redistribution and data breaches, and […] More »

Maxime Bernier, the 2017 Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leadership runner-up, has announced he’s leaving the party to form a truly conservative alternative to Andrew Scheer’s CPC, which Bernier categorized as “intellectually and morally corrupt.” While it’s been clear since the May leadership contest that conflicts between Bernier and Scheer persisted—with Bernier removed from the […] More »

For the first time in the history of Canadian mental health, in 2017, the federal government announced an investment of $5 billion to improve access to nationwide services. The lump sum, which is part of the government’s Health Accord with the provinces and territories, is slated to roll out over the next 10 years. Mental […] More »

Thousands of federal offenders are serving life sentences in Canada’s justice system, and critics say they aren’t getting the rehabilitative support they need. “A life sentence is quite different from a traditional sentence,” explains Anita Desai, executive director of the St. Leonard’s Society of Canada. People serving life sentences, or “lifers,” often grapple with a […] More »

The Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) faced a monumental task: Not only did it need to build a credible recreational cannabis business to manage consumer demand, but it had to outflank the drug’s illicit market, all while undercutting head shops. In figuring out how to balance it all, the LCBO turned to its control-centric […] More »

Former politician Cheri DiNovo was raised an agnostic atheist and, from an early age, thought religion was silly. “I didn’t understand why people were religious,” she says. “I always wanted to have that conversation, but was embarrassed to ask because I saw that some of the Christians I knew were very smart people who did […] More »

After months of public sexual misconduct allegation at all levels of government (and other industries) across Canada, the federal government is crafting a new bill to improve the process for reporting sexual harassment—and avoiding it in the first place. Patty Hajdu, minister of employment, workforce development and labour, introduced Bill C-65 in November 2017, garnering […] More »

When Indigenous leader Jody Wilson-Raybould became Minister of Justice in 2015, the former lawyer and B.C. regional chief was noted as a promising figure for reconciliation in Canada. Personally recruited by Justin Trudeau to run for federal office, she breezed through tricky files, like marijuana legalization and physician-assisted death, with little criticism. But one tweet […] More »

On a mild February afternoon in 2014, a pastor named Chris from the Maritimes sat outside his Jeep in a park near his home by the water, and smoked a joint. There was a sense of experimentation, curiosity even. Having never smoked weed as a teenager, Chris barely knew what he was doing. He got […] More »