This Magazine articles from May 1997

This Magazine archives from May 1997

Holey war (Tim Hortons workers in New Brunswick fired for trying to form a union).
May 1, 1997... Down the street from my apartment in Saint John, New Brunswick, the Tim Hortons doughnut chain filmed one of a series of folksy television commercials--the one in which a golden retriever fetches his master's coffee from the drive-through every...

Reading between the lies.
May 1, 1997... Statistics don't have a good reputation. And political rhetoric is the undisputed champ of the statistical game. So what do you do when the stats are slamming you in the face like so many swollen knuckles? Duck and cover? Turtle? It might be...

Smells like team spirit (Wal Mart).
May 1, 1997... Even the most casual shopper had to know something was strange at Wal-Mart, whether it was the company practice of calling employees "associates" or employees forcing a smile and greeting you at the entrance. But the recent unionization of a...

Vision thing: now's the time for the NDP to take on the right-wing economic agenda at its root.
May 1, 1997... Now's the time for the NDP to take on the right-wing economic agenda at its root. Some passion wouldn't hurt, either It's only during elections that the NDP more or less gets to be the Canadian left. Outside election periods, we get the...

It fakes a village: Edmonton's Terwillegar Towne is supposed to be the panacea for suburban woes.
May 1, 1997... Edmonton's Terwillegar Towne is supposed to be the panacea for suburban woes. Built like a traditional village, it's part of a continentwide trend toward a new kind of urbanism. Turns out, it's also part of the problem Gary Stebner kept...

Fraser attacks: a leaked document reveals the right-wing Fraser Institute's five-year plan for media domination.
May 1, 1997... MICHAEL WALKER FIGURES the document was stolen from right under his nose. It was last November and Walker, director of the Fraser Institute, was holed up in a hotel. It was time for the annual weekend conference of the right-wing...

Wise Use abuse (against environmentalists).
May 1, 1997... OFFICIALLY CHRISTENED IN AUGUST 1988 at a strategy conference in Reno, Nevada, the self-named Wise Use movement quickly metastasized throughout North America, spreading its gospel of anti-environmentalism. British Columbia was well represented...

Protecting the face of corporate rule: first the church blamed the Jesuit Centre's radical social-justice poster.
May 1, 1997... First the Church banned the Jesuit Centre's radical social-justice poster. Then the centre lost its name and Jesuit funding. Is the Catholic Church putting a lid on political debate? "IT'S A GOOD THING we've leased office space from the...

Diary of a (reluctant) radical: it's 1980, and the Village People and Divine are an institution.
May 1, 1997... It's 1980, and the Village People and Divine are an institution. Toronto will soon have its own Gay Pride Day. The hopes for gay liberation are staggering. But then AIDS and neocons came along and took the fun out of it I AM DISILLUSIONED...

You are you because your little dog loves you.
May 1, 1997... I'm going to come clean here. This is how it works. First you're ordering drinks, nuts, thinking Merri or Melinda will be green as fish guts. Before the jet's off the ground you're in the rear bathroom with Jimmy or Steve, doing what you do...

Secret treaty the governmant doesn't want you to know about (Multilateral Agreement on Investment).
May 1, 1997... ONE WAY TO JOLT yourself out of the post-democracy election doldrums is to forget the minutiae of the horse race and start freaking out about the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. The MAI is global capital's utopian wish list and it's about...