Tag: Canadian Politics, Human Rights,

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during an event before raising a pride flag on Parliament Hill to mark the start of Pride month, June 1, 2016. Photo from Twitter. Conversion therapy is premised on the noxious idea that gay people are broken. These pseudoscientific “therapies” can be extremely harmful, and

A Canadian citizen falsely accused of bombing a Paris synagogue in 1980, Hassan Diab was wrongly extradited in 2014 and held, without charge, in a maximum-security French prison for 38 months. Still image from YouTube/CBC. The entire spectrum of our national press has covered the unfolding story of Hassan Diab

The lack of oversight and preventive measures in Canadian state facilities ultimately undermines the credibility of Canada’s stance on protecting human rights. Image by Jared Rodriguez/Truthout/Flickr. This is the second article in a three-part series on Canada’s historical reluctance to ratify the United Nations’ Optional Protocol with the Convention against

Palestine solidarity protesters march towards the British parliament, June 5, 2018. Photo by Alisdare Hickson/Flickr. On October 25, Doug Ford’s Conservative government, through an order-in-council, adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) “working definition of anti-Semitism.” Not only is this unilateral move in keeping with the Ford government’s anti-democratic tendencies,

While torture is illegal in Canada, ratifying the UN’s Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) would make Canada accountable as a nation to international human rights standards, rather than individual institutions subject only to ad hoc and inconsistent governmental

Looking up at a closeup of the statue of Blind Justice on the front of the Albert V. Bryan United States Courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia. Photo by Tim Evanson/Flickr. We understand that needing doctors and medical care is just a part of life. We are happy to distinguish ourselves from

Photo by Essence Harden. Courtesy of the Archives of Southern California Library. As recent events in the United States, Canada and elsewhere demonstrate, society has a cop problem. Police forces everywhere act as if they are above the law⁠—they lie to justify their actions, they disproportionately target Black and Indigenous

Justin Trudeau takes a knee during a rally against the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, June 5, 2020. Still image from YouTube. Over the weekend, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attended an anti-racism rally in Ottawa and scored a photo-op as he took

Homeless men sit on a stoop in Toronto. Photo by Matthew Gray/Flickr. The COVID-19 pandemic has dispelled any uncertainties about where Canada’s loyalties lie. At the onset of the crisis, government bodies quickly implemented preventative measures to stop the disease from tearing through communities and devastating populations. Yet the response

Many residents at the Huronia Regional Centre, an institution for developmentally disabled children operated by the government of Ontario between 1876 and 2009, suffered long-term neglect as well as physical and sexual abuse. Photo by Jim Wilkes/Toronto Star Archives. On April 15, Patty Baird was the first disabled adult living

Photo by Matthias Müller/Flickr Imagine that you are having a nightmare in which you are living a happy life when a deadly and highly contagious pandemic strikes. The voices of authority instruct you what to do to survive: wash your hands frequently, keep two metres apart, and stay at home.

COVID-19 is particularly dangerous for elders, particularly those with chronic illnesses. Photo from Flickr. The marriage of neoliberalism and the medical industrial complex has had disastrous results in Canada, even without the presence of a pandemic. This toxic relationship has led to decades of healthcare cuts, privatization of services, and

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with US President Donald Trump. Photo by Avi Ohayon (Flickr). On January 28, 2020, US President Donald Trump unveiled his “peace” plan for Israel-Palestine alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Notably absent alongside these two embattled leaders, fighting to hang on to their damaged

In Toronto and across Canada, homelessness has reached proportions that no rational and just society would tolerate and it constitutes an emergency situation. The Trump Administration, seeing levels of destitution in California that are producing social dislocation, is preparing for a brutal crackdown on the homeless. We would do well

Photo by John Geoffrey Walker One side is playing for keeps. They oust elected representatives and block members from voting on efforts to challenge a brutal occupation. On the other side, members defending a morally righteous cause twist themselves in knots to avoid directly criticizing nakedly authoritarian party leaders. Recently,

Toronto protest against deadly racist police shootings. Photo courtesy C J Cromwell, March 26, 2016, I live in Toronto at the intersection of St. Clair and Vaughan. Around the corner from my apartment, a young Black man was assaulted by a transit fare inspector officer this February. The officer claimed

Photo by J P Davidson The acquittal of Gerald Stanley on charges of second-degree murder last February precipitated a wave of public protest. People watched as the criminal justice system exonerated a farmer who shot a 22-year-old Cree man at close range for trespassing on his property. The collective response

Photo by Svetlana Grechkina Toronto’s homeless death crisis is the sort of social catastrophe the Ontario NDP was created to fight. Yet, the current party is offering little in the way of solutions. Toronto Public Health data shows nearly two homeless Torontonians died every week in 2017, bringing the total

Photo by Katie Currid By now Quebec’s Bill 62 has been fairly comprehensively discredited, in all its nastiness, its contradictions and its dishonesties. A law passed in the name of the secular state would leave intact such overtly religious symbols of the state as the cross on Quebec’s flag, or

Photo by Jonathan Allard Like many NATO countries, Canada has suffered from an impoverishment of free and open debate when it comes to the issue of relations with the Israeli government and the Palestinian people. In country after country the Israeli lobby dominates not only governing parties but opposition parties