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Wednesday WTF

WTF Wednesday: Brian Mulroney surprisingly not the worst…

Joe Thomson

I’ve been reading a lot of articles about Brian Mulroney taking the time to comment on various important matters recently. He was even interviewed by Conrad Black on the world premiere of the new octogenarian friendly television show The Zoomer (a talk show where, it seems, old people mostly discuss strategies for keeping children from […] More »

WTF Wednesday: I Spy, with My Five Eyes, Brazil’s Oil and Gas

Vincent Colistro

The Five Eyes! The Communications Security Establishment of Canada (CSEC)! The Olympia spying program! The Advanced Network Tradecraft! These seem like names lifted from espionage paperbacks, the kind with shiny embossed covers bearing some hyper-masculine pen name like Dick Richter. But, sadly, they aren’t the stuff of fiction. Slides were leaked last week that implicate […] More »

WTF Wednesday: tobacco industry still targeting youth

Joe Thomson

If high-school kids are smoking, they’re likely to have used flavoured tobacco products like candy flavoured cigarillos, according to a coalition of health groups that released the findings of their Youth Smoking survey on Monday. More than 50 percent of those who smoked had used flavoured tobacco products, which have come under fire for their […] More »

WTF Wednesday: Globe and Mail’s Margaret Wente steps up to defend David Gilmour

Vincent Colistro

By the time Friday rolled around last week there was a veritable anthology of jokes to which “David Gilmour” was the punch line. The paper-bag jowls and complacent half-smile of his face pasted on News Feeds and blogs like an advert for a public flogging. Everywhere that CanLit went, so too went the name David […] More »

WTF Wednesday: New York Times calls out our embarrassing P.M.

Joe Thomson

The image of Stephen Harper “muzzling” anybody frightens me. Hair slightly un-coifed, half a glass of Chablis to the wind, his dog-eared copy of Atlas Shrugged has been tucked away on the dresser where his tighty-whiteys are neatly folded in the drawers below. It’s Friday night god dammit and Stephen’s here to party. The safe […] More »

WTF Wednesday: pipeline company wants to build through B.C. Grizzly sanctuary

Vincent Colistro

  Amid the whirlwind of controversies surrounding rape and consent, I’m reminded of the cliché, “raping the land”. It’s a grisly metaphor that’s come to signify the senseless destruction of an otherwise innocent place. Nowhere is that metaphor better actualized than in the laying of a pipeline through the pristine B.C. interior. And have the […] More »

Wednesday WTF: Stephen Harper’s Northern (BBQ) Tour

Espe Currie

Stephen Harper began his eighth annual Northern Tour August 18, accompanied by his wife, Laureen, and a gaggle of ministers. The tour launched Sunday as the prime minister and his entourage landed in Whitehorse, where Harper spoke at a Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) BBQ and attended an afternoon picnic in Miles Canyon. In his […] More »

Wednesday WTF: A Sochi Primer

Espe Currie

The 2014 Winter Olympics may or may not take place in Sochi, Russia. The country has spent a reported $53 billion developing infrastructure for the Games, but a troubling new law banning “homosexual propaganda”—pride rallies or anything deemed “pro-gay”—could derail the event. Here is our round-up of who’s saying what about the Sochi debacle. The […] More »

WTF Wednesday: Toronto police kill Sammy Yatim

Hillary Di Menna

Dundas Square, at 5:10 p.m., hundreds of protesters marched, outraged. Voices crying, “Shame!” Signs questioning, “Who will protect us from our protectors?” Bodies wearing office clothes, casual clothing, work out gear. Megaphones amplify chants, drums create unison, bagpipes mourn. Minds on Sammy Yatim, the 18-year-old boy fatally shot by police last Saturday.He never made it […] More »

WTF Wednesday: Canadian Blood Services trumpets policy change on gay men and blood donation

Espe Currie

Canadian Blood Services is now accepting blood donations from men who have had sex with men—but only if they haven’t done so in the past five years. The change took effect July 22, and marks a drastic departure from the organization’s previous policies concerning blood donation from the MSM category of donor, a blanket term used to […] More »

WTF Wednesday: RadFem 2013 in Toronto

Espe Currie

From July 5 to 7, the RadFem Rise Up! conference was held in Toronto. The conference was controversial—the radical feminist movement and its affiliate Deep Green Resistance (DGR) have been accused of transphobia because of their push for female-only safe space, which excludes trans women. Originally scheduled at Beaver Hall, an artist co-operative in downtown […] More »