By now, the mayor of my beloved hometown, Toronto, needs no introduction: His name is Rob Ford. He’s the guy who gets belligerent at sporting events, sometimes speaks with a faux Jamaican accent, coached a kids’ football team (but can’t catch a football) and, oh yeah, occasionally smokes crack while “in a drunken stupor.” Ring […]
Canada
Stories about Canadian politics and social issues.
Canadian Teen Gets Abstinence-Only Education Class Cancelled
Canadian high school student Emily Dawson has a lot to celebrate this month. She and her mother, Kathy Dawson, filed a human-rights complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission last year after Emily completed a mandatory abstinence-only workshop that slut-shamed students and used scare tactics to enforce abstinence. Two weeks ago, the Edmonton Public School Board announced […]
Last Abortion Clinic in Canadian Province to Close
When Kandace Hagen told the nurse at her family doctor’s office she wanted to terminate her pregnancy, the woman abruptly stopped speaking to her. But she scribbled the name of the Morgentaler Clinic in Fredericton, New Brunswick, on a piece of paper before quickly leaving the room. “The entire atmosphere was very cold, very unsupportive,” […]
24 Years On: Never Forgetting the Montreal Massacre
I live with 14 women I have never met. Each holiday season, I grade final exams, choose my Christmas tree, shovel my driveway and wrap my gifts, all the while remembering what happened on December 6, 1989. On that day in Montreal, 14 young women were in school studying to be engineers. They were doing […]
The Femisphere: Bloggers From Canada
Women, Action and the Media (WAM!) recently released “Exploring the Canadian Feminist Blogosphere,” informed by research conducted on behalf of WAM! Vancouver. The report delves into the distinction between blogs that explicitly identify as feminist and those that come from a feminist sensibility. While it paints an interesting picture of the developing feminist blogosphere in […]
Canada Is No Safe Harbor for Reproductive Rights
Every election year, disgruntled Americans threaten to move to Canada if the vote doesn’t come out the way they want it to, and 2012 was no different. Prior to election day, progressives prepared to move north; once the results were in, conservatives took to social media to announce similar plans, and were immediately mocked for […]
New Canadian Hundred Dollar Bill Depicts a Woman–U.S., Take Note!
One thing Canadians may notice upon receiving their fancy new PLASTIC hundred dollar bills this month (if they’re fortunate enough to carry around that kind of pocket change), is that the piece of government-issued paper currency bears the face of a woman. To many viewers, the image of a woman with a microscope may initially […]
This Week in Priest Abuse
As SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) anxiously await news from the International Criminal Court (ICC) on whether they will try Pope Benedict XVI and several top Vatican officials for crimes against humanity for the epidemic of clergy sexual abuse and coverups, new allegations concerning sexual abuse […]
How Gender Gets Stopped at the Border
Looking to go into the shoe importing business? Be prepared to pay more to get women’s shoes across the border. Or maybe you have an itch to sell cotton shirts? Be prepared to pony up more for the men’s variety. Unfair, you say? Take it up with whoever regulates tariffs. That’s actually quite tricky, as […]