Assorted content to end your week. – A new IMF working paper confirms the connection between employment deregulation and workers’ share of income. And Jennefer Laidley points out the all-too-imminent danger that the Ontario PCs are about to undo what little belated progress had been made in making social assistance
Continue readingTag: harm reduction
Alberta Politics: UCP leader says he’s opposed to more safe-drug-consumption clinics – but what does he favour to address opioid crisis?
PHOTOS: United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney in a typical pose. He said in Lethbridge last week he’s opposed to harm-reduction efforts like supervised injection sites to deal with the opioid crisis. But what does he support? Below: Mr. Kenney’s brother David Kenney (Photo: Once posted on LinkedIn); NDP Banff-Cochrane
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Reuters examines how well-being improves when people live in urban areas rather than suburban ones. But Tannara Yelland reminds us that we can’t pretend for a second that people will have the opportunity to do so when there’s more immediate money to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Stefan Stern writes that our current corporate culture needs to be changed in ways going far beyond reining in excessive executive compensation: Wage inequality is also a symbol of something more fundamentally wrong in the business world. Too many corporations are competing to
Continue readingA. Picazo: On assisted death and psychological suffering
This column was published at Maclean’s on March 28, 2017 In 2015, a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the federal ban on physician-assisted suicide, solidifying the charter right of competent, consenting adults who are “suffering intolerably as a result of a grievous and irremediable medical
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Shoreline, True Grit, photo-bombing, certainty and the Deity: random observations from Alberta’s Throne Speech
PHOTOS: Alberta Lieutenant Governor Lois Mitchell, clad in a purple official gown, reads the NDP Government’s third Speech from the Throne in the Legislature in Edmonton yesterday afternoon. Below: Party crasher Jason Kenney, Labour Minister Christina Gray (Dave Cournoyer photo) and Opposition Leader Brian Jean. Alberta’s New Democratic Party Government
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Unite-the-right poll results ring alarm bells and raise interesting questions, none of which are asked by the media
PHOTOS: A pollster asks a typical Albertan if she’d prefer to vote for a united Wildrose-PC Party … or the NDP. Actual Alberta pollsters and their subjects may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Pollster Quito Maggi, Alberta Prosperity Fund …
Continue readingMelissa Fong: RIP Bud Osborn
RIP Bud Osborn http://t.co/CrWrlN1PR7— Melissa Fong (@internationalmf) May 07, 2014 raise shit – a downtown eastside poem of resistance “the myth of the frontier is an invention that rationalizes […]
Continue readingCanada strikes out as a progressive nation
There was a time—long, long ago—when Canada had a reputation in the world as a progressive nation. Well … not so long ago actually. Only eight years in fact. It just seems like a long time. Now, in at least three areas we have joined the ranks of the reactionaries,
Continue readingMelissa Fong: The facts on PHS scandal & following reactions of critics, boards and Jenny Kwan
…The fact is that PHS provides really important harm reduction programming that needs to be defended. The scandal involves non-profit board members that are supposed to be working in the best interest of the DTES, not on #34KVacations. Townshend and Small (Jenny Kwan’s ex) are implicated with irresponsible spending on
Continue readingMelissa Fong: “Micro-brothels” in BC: Are we still criminalizing prostitution?
“Micro-brothels” in BC: Are we still criminalizing prostitution? The short answer: YES. Now the long answer: I’ve seen a couple articles in Vancouver’s 24hr News about how micro-brothels are a booming and we should be really scared because micro-brothels are dangerous. See here and here. First article: Sex-worker activist Sue
Continue readingThings Are Good: 15-Year Study: Stop Drug Use Through Harm Reduction
The American style “war on drugs” undoubtably ruins more lives than it saves (all while militarizing North American police forces), yet some people think that punishing drug users is sound policy. Research is continually adding more evidence that approaching drug consumption as a health issue and not a criminal one
Continue readingOlivia Chow as Toronto mayor?
God, weren’t we all thankful when we heard Rob Ford was finally given the boot? (Let’s hope it stays that way, anyway). Of course, before his appeal has even really begun, people (the media) have been speculating on his replacements. Many names hav…
Continue readingObama wins! Marijuana legalized?!?!
(On a quick side note, I’m going to start breaking up my posts into the different topics in the title, using red headings, as seen below – ‘Fiscal Cliff and American Political System’ – to make it easier for people to find what they really want…
Continue readingknitnut.net: Safe injection sites: Treating people with addictions like they matter
Last October, the Supreme Court ruled that Insite, Vancouver’s safe injection site, could stay open despite the Harper Government’s objections. The arguments hinged on whether addiction was primarily a health issue or a crime issue. If it were a health matter it would fall under provincial jurisdiction; if it were
Continue readingCombat zone
It is a war out there, and the front line combatants are women. Dr Gabor Maté has charted the battles that rage within and without, which begin from the moment a zygote starts its journey of cell proliferation and eventually, attempts to survive as a creature facing a hostile environment.
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: We Must Stop Stephen Harper and the 20% from Destroying Canada
There has been lots of discussion about how Stephen Harper’s majority only represents 40% of voters because of the way our electoral system works. But, in reality, his agenda has much fewer supporters. We must remember that the Conservative Party is a coalition. It is not a coalition in the
Continue readingUpdate, finally!
So the Conservatives are finally starting to have fun with their majority. We all knew this day would come — when we would be forced to helplessly sit at the sidelines and watch while these idiots we call ‘representatives’ shove through legislation so…
Continue readingeaves.ca: How the War on Drugs Destabilized the Global Economy
This is truly, truly fantastic. If you haven’t already read this stunning story from the Guardian: How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico’s murderous drug gangs. This is, in essence a chronicle how the dark and sordid side of banking and about how one US bank – Wachovia – essentially allowed Mexican drug […]
Continue readingknitnut.net: Insite comes to Ottawa
The Harper Government TM is still attempting to shut down Insite, Canada’s only supervised injection site. The case is now before the Supreme Court of Canada, which is where I spent yesterday morning.
I had to line up to go through a scanner, and empty my pockets and put metal things in a bin and so […]
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