This Magazine articles from July 2000

This Magazine archives from July 2000

Just bill me (health care, Alberta).
July 1, 2000... THE ALBERTA GOVERNMENT'S HEALTH-CARE LEGISLATION, BILL 11, has rocked the province and sent ripples around the country. Critic say that provisions such as allowing "private surgical facilities" to have patients stay overnight are the first step...

Baby bonus.
July 1, 2000... I THINK OF IT NOW AS MY WEAKEST MOMENT. It was early summer, my ankles swollen in the heat, jeans straining at my suddenly bulging pregnant belly, and I found myself in a maternity store. I was desperate for something that fit and inordinately...

Saint George (Soros) the drachma-slayer.
July 1, 2000... CURRENCY SPECULATOR, PHILANTHROPIST, billionaire and author--George Soros was a hero to young MBAS everywhere. That is, until he became the Wall Street whistleblower. For the past few years, the man who made his billions on the misfortunes of...

Commie versis Commie (Canada and the United States).
July 1, 2000... THE LEFT HAS LONG CAST A SCEPTICAL EYE ON GLOBALIZATION. BLOWING across borders and knocking over tariff walls, globalization has led to chilling visions of a monocultural world where people all speak the same language (English), watch the same...

These streets aren't made for walking.
July 1, 2000... The following letter was read by R.M. Vaughan at Nightwood Theatre's Feminist Scheminist cabaret in Toronto and mailed to Ontario's attorney general, Jim Flaherty. Mr. Jim Flaherty Attorney General The Province of Ontario ...

Just add water: the corporatization of Latin America ... local water industry was privatized ...
July 1, 2000... IN EARLY APRIL, AS THOUSANDS FROM AROUND the world were preparing to converge on Washington, D.C., for a major protest against the abuses of economic globalization, there was a battle over those same abuses in the streets of far-off Cochabamba,...

Narcissism of minor difference: ... is gay passe?
July 1, 2000... THE PROBLEM ISN'T REALLY WITH GAY. THIS was made abundantly clear at a debate sponsored by This Magazine in Toronto a few months ago, cutely titled "Is Gay Passe?" Colour-coded American-style, the panel that was collected to discuss the issue...

Armed and dangerous: ... Toronto Police Association's True Blue.
July 1, 2000... Bugs, threats, secret investigations: no wonder the Toronto Police Association's Operation True Blue sparked a wave of outrage last winter. But as SARAH SCHMIDT found out, it's just the tip of the iceberg of a power-and-politics policing trend...

Watching the watchers: why isn't anyone following the RCMP's "dirty tricks" trail?
July 1, 2000... POLICE FORCES DO NOT WORK ALONE. THIS BECAME APPARENT to me on June 7, when two middle-aged men in street clothes rang my doorbell. Anticipating an encounter with Jehovah's Witnesses, I was greeted instead by Sgt. W.B. Cameron of the "Saskatoon...

Usual suspects: mass direct action has the power to transform the face of democracy.
July 1, 2000... Mass direct action has the power to transform the face of democracy. As Seattle--and Windsor and Calgary--showed, it also has the potential to create a huge new criminal class. Meet the new "terrorist brigade" THE LATE SHIFT IS HEADING...

Shutdown in uniontown: it began with an exodus of workers from a U.S. union, the SEIU, to the CAW ...
July 1, 2000... FOR KEN BROWN, THE FIRST SIGNALS OF TROUBLE WERE IN THE LAVISH nature of the almost-weeklong meeting of his union's executive, in the sunny climes of Orlando, Florida, last January. As one of two Canadian vice presidents of the Service...

after months of dark, dawn breaks.
July 1, 2000... the circumference of the arctic shape, sleds stop, & four wheel trucks across the ice slides & white burst on white / diamonds & yellow gaze : there was never any doubt that it was beautiful (just that its so cold :...

Cottage life.
July 1, 2000... AS A PUP, THE NEWFOUNDLAND RETRIEVER LOOKS LIKE A BEAR CUB. IT GROWS into a massive, imposing dog on the same dimensions, roughly, as a St. Bernard. It's a powerful looking creature, a huge head on a neck thick with muscle and fur. Once used...

Change room.
July 1, 2000... It must be wonderful to be a practicing bisexual, to have the best of both fleshy worlds at your fingertips. It must be even better to simply write like a bisexual--all the nooky you can handle, and no uncomfortable phone calls the next day!...

Very good butter.
July 1, 2000... John Lavery might anchor your place of repose more securely, but don't trust the links. His debut collection of stories, VERY GOOD BUTTER (ECW Press), is a compendium of all things brittle and dyspeptic in the wonderful world of families....

His life.
July 1, 2000... George Bowering has never been one to shy away from the tell-all poem--in fact, he helped invent it. His latest book, appropriately titled His Life (ECW Press), is a delicious assembly of 30 years' worth of four-poem sequences, each written on...

(Witness my shame).
July 1, 2000... Riot Grrrl, like grunge or punk before it, denatured under the mainstream media spotlight that turned a political movement into a fashion statement. But the core idea of creating a version of female sexuality that didn't conform to the gloss...

(Search) Engine trouble.
July 1, 2000... As THE INTERNET GROWS INTO A SPECTACULAR MALL, sprawling suburb and global information dump, the only hope we have for navigating this mess is in the myriad "search engines" at our disposal. These engines or "spiders" crawl the Net, offering up...