Donald Trump’s policies represent a particular attack on American youth and children, particularly those who are disadvantaged.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
No country is immune to terrorism, but de-radicalizing people who have been attracted to terrorist organizations like ISIS can work.
The recent controversy at Wilfrid Laurier University has set off another debate about free speech. But free speech can’t override the human rights of marginalized people.
(AP Photo file photo/David Goldman)
The raging free speech debate, used by the far right to gain legitimacy, detracts from the real conversations we should be having about human rights and questions about who gets to create knowledge.
Islamophobia in Québec has roots that lie within our missionary past and the Christian nature of our society. We need to reinterpret out past in order to move forward and past 20th century racism.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes)
The current aggressive version of Islamophobia in Québec is unique to the province. We need a critical re-interpretation of our own history to build a Québec freed from our old racist patterns.
A polar bear walks over sea ice floating in the Victoria Strait in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago in July 2017. Research suggests that divesting in fossil fuels could help nations meet their climate change goals.
(AP Photo/David Goldman, file)
Fossil fuel divestment apparently works. Research suggests announcements of divestments have a significant impact on the fossil fuel industry’s share prices.
The apparently growing practIce of governments and government officials blocking critics on social media has serious implications for freedom of expression.
(Shutterstock)
Citizens should be free to criticize government authorities on social media platforms, and muzzling such criticism may well be unconstitutional.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, has promised support for scientific research as the United States under President Donald Trump has made moves to change leadership and cut funding for scientific agencies and programs. The men are seen in this file photo at the White House last February.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)
Canada must take the lead as a global champion of science as America under President Donald Trump presses its assault on fact and knowledge.
Human memories are malleable. U.S. President Donald Trump seems aware of this truism as he effectively moulds and shapes American minds with deceptions and exaggerations.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
He’s not dumb. He’s not crazy. Donald Trump is instead a mind manipulator, using his Twitter magic wand to exploit so-called malleable memory effect that helps him achieve ultra-right goals.
A severe summer drought in Thailand in 2016 caused many of the country’s reservoirs to dry up, including this one near Lampang.
(Shutterstock)
The Trump administration withdrew from the Paris Agreement. But U.S. cities and states are supporting climate change efforts in the developing world regardless.
Canadians often mourn the loss of their local newspaper. But there’s a disconnect, because few Canadians actually pay for a local news subscription.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward)
The love Canadians profess for their local newspapers isn’t quite what it seems. Few pay for a subscription, and many say they can get their news elsewhere if their local paper shuts down.
The framing of Motion 103, combatting Islamophobia, may seem like a distant concern to the free speech debate in universities, but it is in fact related in the way the so-called “alt-right” uses free speech as a rhetorical prop in their campaigns of ideological intimidation. Here:
Protesters rally over motion M-103, the Liberal anti-Islamophobia motion, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in March.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)
Right-wing ideologues use free speech as an alibi for their transphobic and Islamophobic rhetoric.
A statue of John A. Macdonald is shown covered in red paint in Montreal in November 2017. Canada’s first Prime MInister, he has been criticized for his treatment of Indigenous peoples and attitudes towards those of Chinese origin.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes)
In a time of populism and political polarization, children and young adults need to learn to think critically, with complexity and nuance. History, as a subject, is more important than ever.
Women’s NGOs work hard to improve the lives of women in the developing world, including in countries like India and Tanzania. But then they’re often cut out from the process. This photo was taken in the remote village of Uzi on Zanzibar Island in Tanzania in April 2016.
(Shutterstock)
NGOs (non-government organizations) run by women in India and Tanzania fuel the success of development projects, but the women are too easily marginalized once the projects get off the ground.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Gregoire, meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, before dinner at the G20 Leaders Summit in Hangzhou, China in September 2016. Trudeau is in China to discuss a trade deal.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in China to discuss a trade deal. It’s laughable for Canada to believe it can negotiate a “progressive” trade agenda with the Chinese.
Current medical inadmissibility rules for newcomers are out of touch with Canadian values and need to be reformed. Here, candles around an AIDS symbol on World AIDS Day in Quezon city, Philippines 2016.
(AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
World AIDS Day is an opportunity to discuss how current medical inadmissibility rules for newcomers are out of touch with Canadian values and need to be reformed.
A real estate sold sign hangs in front of a west-end Toronto property. Canada’s newly announced housing strategy contains scant measures to help first-time buyers in pricey markets.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graeme Roy
Canada’s National Housing Strategy leaves a large segment of the population that must find a way to afford housing in the private market. More initiatives are needed to help first-time home buyers.
Governments face disruption by the private sector and social unrest unless they embrace new technology. Here, Prime Minster Justin Trudeau meets a robot in Edmonton last May as others look on.
( THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson)
Government is about to be disrupted by technology in the same manner as major industries. It’s about time.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has apologized to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and two-spirited people who were forced out of the military or public service and some who were even prosecuted criminally for “gross indecency.”
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau plans to make a formal apology to LGBTQ2 communities for past state-sanctioned discrimination against them in Canada. But the apology must be more than just words.
People demonstrate in Toronto in August 2017 in solidarity with those at a University of Virginia rally against white supremacy. That demonstration ended in tragedy after a woman was killed by a white supremacist. Universities in both the U.S. and Canada are at the centre of fierce debates about free speech and the right of those on the far right to be heard.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
In such a polarized age, universities and colleges should uphold the core values of liberal education by asserting, through their policies and practices, the reasonable, rational middle ground.
Cirque du Soleil is one of the many Canadian artist groups that have received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts.
(Cirque du Soleil)
The new creative framework policy put forth by the Canadian government has been criticized for its capitalist and Silicon Valley leanings. But it’s actually Canada’s best creative policy to date.
Isabel Daniels weeps as she speaks of her murdered cousin, Nicole Daniels, at the opening day of hearings at the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Winnipeg in October 2017.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods)
Canadians should be listening closely to stories coming from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. We need to hear the truth and then help justice move forward.
U.S. President Donald Trump, right, talks with British Prime Minister Theresa May in Italy in May at a G7 summit. Trump has crowed about a “very quick” U.S.-U.K. trade deal.
(AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
Donald Trump views himself as a deal-maker, so the prospect of a “quick” trade deal between the U.K. and the U.S. seems unlikely, despite the American president’s earlier optimism.
Canada’s pension plans are failing to divest of fossil fuels. But today’s pensioners, and those of the future, will benefit from pension plans choosing ethical and sustainable investments.
(Shutterstock)
Canada’s biggest pension plans are failing to divest of fossil fuels. Climate change demands pension plans start to invest in sustainable industries that benefit Canadians.
Loyalty to the British Empire is taught to these second and third generation Japanese children in an Internment Camp in British Columbia circa 1942.
(CP PHOTO/Jack Long National Archives of Canada C-067492)
Recently, 300 protest letters written by Japanese Canadians in the 1940s were reopened. The letters convey a deep sense of loss, injustice and outrage by Japanese Canadians who lost their homes.
People carry posters during this Feb. 2017 rally against President Donald Trump’s executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority nations, in New York’s Times Square.
(AP Photo/Andres Kudacki, File)
In the shadow of Trump-era cross-border discrimination, an early-stage scholar reflects on the meaning of religious diversity and his act of resistance by boycotting conference travel to the U.S.
