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Search results for: “site/human rights”

  • A litany of reports, but little accountability for police violence against Black Canadians

    When it comes to anti-Black racism in Canadian policing, we don’t have an information gap, we have a police accountability gap. I’m reminded of this as I review some of the findings of two significant reports released jointly in August by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, with news channels in…

  • Fast Facts The First Rung on the Ladder: community-based literacy programming in public housing complexes

    A wealth of evidence—both global and local—confirms the value of literacy and the importance of programs that promote literacy. This is especially the case for low-income individuals and communities, for whom gains in literacy can be transformative. Manitoba has embraced this truth by laying the groundwork for real gains in…

  • The Expressive Liberty of Beggars

    Why it matters to them, and to us Download 282.22 KB 28 pages Attachments FastFacts: The Case Against Criminalizing Panhandling: Laws that muzzle the disadvantaged violate human rights

  • The sound of silence

    Weeks stretch to months, months to years as BC government clamps down on information  When debate on the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Amendment Act began last fall Stephanie Cadieux, then Liberal MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale, was among many to note how British Columbians are waiting longer and longer…

  • Book review – Just cool it! The climate crisis and what we can do

    The following is a review of Just cool it! The climate crisis and what we can do by David Suzuki and Ian Hanington, published by Greystone Books/David Suzuki Institute. Two passages in the introduction to this book encapsulate the situation that confronts us as the effects of global warming become more serious every…

  • The Weight of the One Percent

    Environment hurt more by super-rich than population growth Last October, two things happened that captured media attention. One was the run-up to the birth of the United Nations-selected seven billionth person on Earth. While this was a rather absurd exercise, given the impressive inaccuracy of demographic projections, it does have…

  • The Ethics of the Ethical Oil Cabal

    With the recent demonstrations in Ottawa against the Alberta tarsands and the XL oil pipeline, most of the mainstream media very quickly bought into the oil lobby’s talking points by constantly raising the argument that Alberta bitumen constitutes “ethical oil,” a morally superior product in relation to oil extracted from…

  • Fast Facts: What the Frack is Happening in Manitoba

    Manitoba is poised to be a major Canadian player in providing large quantities of silica sand used in hydraulic fracking by the oil and gas industry.  This presents major risks that should be fully explored before allowing shovels into the ground. Canadian Premium Sand, a Canadian publicly traded company, is…

  • Fast Facts: Steeling the NDP’s resolve

    Migrant farm workers need access to public healthcare As spring unfolds in southern Manitoba, we will soon see more than migratory birds arriving. Over 400 Seasonal Agricultural Workers are about to arrive from Mexico to take up the back-breaking work of cultivating vegetable and berry crops on Manitoba’s farms. These…

  • Trade and Investment Research Project

    Canada completes the 1st round of negotiations with Indonesia, the largest palm oil producer

    This week, Canada and Indonesia, the largest palm oil producer and exporter in the world, are completing the first round of negotiations on a proposed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). Only last year, research published in Nature Ecology and Evolution described how wealthy countries contribute to deforestation in poorer nations through international trade deals. According to…

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    Food security in BC? Don’t count on it.

    If California’s farmers ever run out of the water needed to irrigate their crops, we’ll be in for a rude awakening. With 70 per cent of British Columbia’s imported fruits and vegetables coming from the sunny US state, any climatic disaster there would almost certainly result in dramatic run-ups in food…

  • Protesting the G20: A Waste of Time?

    During the G20 ministerial meetings in Toronto, the sensational images of burning police cruiser cars and broken shop windows dominated the newspaper headlines. This is what the world saw. What I saw in Toronto was radically different. On June 21st, I travelled to Toronto in a van filled with activists…