On June 20, 2011, Mayor Rob Ford and his allies on Toronto City Council Executive Committee turned down free money.
The Ontario government had offered $170,000 to cover the cost of hiring two public health nurses. One nurse would have worked with new immigrants on disease prevention. The other would have worked in low income neighbourhoods to promote health services. While the province had committed to ongoing funding for these two positions, Ford refused to hire the nurses.
During their recent tour of Canada, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited Blachford Lake Lodge on the traditional and unceded territory of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation. The July 5 stopover began with demonstrations by the 1st Canadian Rangers Patrol Group, composed mainly of Inuit members.
From there, the royals began a tour of Dechinta Bush University Centre for Research and Learning. Dechinta is a post-secondary education initiative providing Indigenous and non-Indigenous students with much-needed opportunities to take university-accredited courses developed in the North, led by Northern experts, and focused on the land as the primary teacher.
With 16 straight years of profitability, including record profits in 2009 and postage rates lower than almost all other industrialized countries, the Canada Post negotiations should have been relatively easy. But it's Tory times in Canada and what better way is there for a right-wing government to attack the labour movement than by going after the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, a national and historically militant union?
The verdict is in: Insite saves lives. A study by UBC scientists at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS adds to the collection of data already showing that North America's first medically supervised safer injection facility saves lives and money.
The study, published last month in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, concludes that the opening of Insite in 2003 was associated with a 35 per cent reduction in overdose deaths in the neighbourhood surrounding the facility. This reduction translates into real lives saved at no expense whatsoever to the federal government.
Stephen Harper can almost taste a majority. More than a decade of work to unite the right and make the new Conservative Party more palatable for Canadians has reached a point where the party has, as of mid-March, polled its highest ratings. With an election on May 2nd, Harper is very close to fulfilling his dream of majority rule.
Unless of course he falls short and the opposition parties form a coalition government.
Harper hates this possibility, naturally. He more than anyone recognizes the viability and inevitability of coalition governments.
Right out of the gate in the 2011 federal election, the Harper campaign has managed to frame the terms of debate as the threat of a "coalition." The media are largely giving the Conservatives a pass on this, allowing them to repeat the "Big Lie" as though it were true. With "coalition" now read pejoratively (21 times in one of Harper's media cross-nation opportunities on March 28), too many Canadians are ignorant of the fact that coalitions are not illegitimate, unparliamentary, or unconstitutional. Coalitions do, however, require elected members to work collaboratively rather than with the toxic opposition the Conservatives have demonstrated.
Dear Mr. Ignatieff,
Your statement of March 7, 2011 re: Israeli Apartheid Week is deeply unethical. I say this not simply because of your unethical support for Israel, but because the statements you make in condemnation of Israeli Apartheid Week betray a deep lack of intellectual integrity.
Today ceasefire.ca launches a petition against the purchast of F-35 stealth fighters for the Canadian military. Check out the petition by clicking here or use the nifty form below, and read 10 plus one great reasons to sign.
The following letter concerning the Nov. 28 electoral exercise in Haiti was e-mailed to all members of the Canadian Parliament on Wednesday, Dec. 15. On Dec. 13, the House of Commons in Ottawa held a rare debate on Haiti. You can read excerpts or the full transcript of that debate by going to the website of the Canada Haiti Action Network.
To: Members of the Parliament of Canada
Subject: Election in Haiti
Dear Member of Parliament,
We are writing to urge that as an elected Member of Parliament you direct a critical eye to the Canadian government's financing and endorsement of the Nov. 28 election in Haiti.
Canada Post has the largest vehicle fleet in the country and the most extensive coast-to-coast retail presence. It could dramatically expand the range of services it provides.
This idea may surprise certain segments of the population who are forecasting "the death of the letter" and even the post office because of an explosion of electronic technology and increased competition in the postal sector.
The fact is people, not machines or markets, will ultimately determine whether our public post office survives and thrives.