This Magazine articles from May 2007

This Magazine archives from May 2007

Off course.(LETTERS)(Canada's military troops in Afghanistan)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2007... In response to Jared Ferrie's article on why Canada shouldn't pull its troops out of Afghanistan ("Staying the course," March/April), I would like to say that not all peace activists support the complete withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan....

Better with letters.(EDITORIAL)(Editorial)
May 1, 2007... FOR THE FIRST TIME since I've been with This Magazine, we have more letters than we can fit on our letters pages. This makes me happy. Ordinarily, I have to beg, borrow and steal them. Readers are less inclined to write into their favourite...

Against the grain: a prairie boy returns to his roots.(PROFILE)(Blake Hunter's organic farming)
May 1, 2007... BLAKE HUNTER, a 25-year-old farmer living an hour northeast of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, is taking the gravel road less travelled. Not only has he come back to the rural area most of the kids he grew up with have fled, he's launching an...

Shell shocked: privatization threatens Nova Scotia clams.(NEWS)(aquaculture industry)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS First Nations peoples have dug clams from Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy shores, but the sustainability of the already troubled industry is now being further threatened by privatization. Last year, the provincial...

A toast to climate change: warmer weather boosts northern wineries.(NEWS)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... SOME OF THE MOST INTERESTING environmental news items can be found in the business press. Here's one for the "scary, but strangely positive" file. The March 2006 issue of Canadian Business magazine reports that wine production in Nova Scotia is...

WTF?(NEWS)(in response to an article written about Canadian university students' cheating)(Viewpoint essay)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... He's transformed Maclean's into something we love to hate, rather than just ignore. We've never giggled so much at a magazine cover as over the recent Osama bin Laden "Look who's 50!" one. But there's sensational, and there's just plain...

LGBT youth have RR addresses, too.(NEWS)(Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender youth's movement and the gay-straight alliance)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... FOR MORE THAN TWO YEARS in a rural Ontario community of-2,000, a group of students at Fenelon Falls Secondary School has been meeting regularly to promote awareness of queer issues through a gay-straight alliance (GSA). Niki Madore, one of...

Harper watch.(NEWS)(Stephen Harper )(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... HOW DO WE MEASURE the success of a public health project? In the case of Vancouver's Insite safe-injection facility, Stephen Harper seems a little confused. The projects has some backers--the premier, the major, the police department's chief...

A woman by any other name ...(WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ... WOMYN WITH A "Y"?)(feminist movement)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... THERE WAS A TIME when spelling marked whether you stood with the feminist revolution or The Man. The first uppity ladies to replace the "e" in "women" with a were editors of the Michigan-based magazine Lesbian Connection, back in 1976. The...

Too-low income? Too bad: small farmers take another hit.(ARGUMENT)
May 1, 2007... LAST JULY, Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl proudly introduced the Canadian Farm Families Options program, with the stated goal of assisting low-income farmers and farm families. Through the initiative, farmers are eligible for a conditional...

City vs. country.(GRAPHIC)(Table)
May 1, 2007... CANADA IS HUGE: 9,984,670 square kilometres, most of which is wide-open and sparsely populated spaces. But more doesn't necessarily mean better, as the country's dominantly urban population will tell you. In this highly scientific survey, This...

5 loopholes in the new Federal Accountability Act.(LIST)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... THE CONSERVATIVES claim Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, means the Canadian government has been cleaned up. Not quite, in November 2005, Harper promised that, if elected, the Conservatives would pass an accountability act with 52...

The price of aid: what happens when you get what you pay for?(POLITICS)(Canadian foreign aid)
May 1, 2007... Campaigns like Make Poverty History and personalities such as Bono perennially call for an increase in aid to the Third World. Aid should be increased, many on the left say, to 0.7 percent of GDP, far above Canada's current 0.33 percent. A...

Bad date: beware the blandishments of tax-cutting Prince Steve.(ECONOMICS)(Stephen Harper's tax policy)
May 1, 2007... Real friends will warn you that tax cuts are like blind dates. No matter how disappointing the last one was, you still hope the next will make your dreams come true. Harper's Conservatives want to seduce you with their tax cuts. But before you...

Exurban myths: how our rural identity is sucking the life out of cities.(CONTRARIAN)
May 1, 2007... It might be Anne Shirley's fault. She has been hoisted up so high in our cultural imagination that she's almost on our flag; we can't help but identify with her even if we've never seen a lighthouse and don't know what a gable is. Her story is...

Bad practice: how developing nations are suffering from Canada's band-aid solutions to our own doctor shortage.(Cover story)
May 1, 2007... BIG RIVER, SASKATCHEWAN, is a charming community. A two-and-half hour drive north of Saskatoon, this town of 1,600 is nestled among thick Northern boreal forest and pristine lakes. It was founded in 1905 to serve the logging industry and is the...

Back to the land: why moving to the country will save us all.(rural life )
May 1, 2007... To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves. --Mahatma Gandhi WE ARE DEEP IN THE SHIT. Only a fool will dispute this. Sure, lately we embrace somnambulant palliatives in the form of Al Gore's hectoring...

The accidental symbol: how Martha Hall Findlay became synonymous with "women in politics"--despite her best efforts.
May 1, 2007... A plane landed at Vancouver's International Airport last September and a tired woman gathered up her bags. her mind preoccupied with the challenges of the next few days. As the longest shot of the long shots hoping to win the top job in the...

Live from Rankin Inlet: in this Nunavut community, Darrell Greer is the news.(Kivalliq News' journalist)
May 1, 2007... Day breaks in the hamlet of Rankin Inlet, Nunavut. A dog barks in the distance. Another howls back. An Inuk buzzes loudly down a snow-covered road on his all-terrain vehicle. It's Monday morning, and the temperature is -60 C with the wind...

3 sennets.(Fiction & Poetry)(Poem)
May 1, 2007... 3 Sennets XVI does it take being startled by the ghosts of a lonely childhood to make a start? ghosts that feel their way along a rope dividing the big sea? does the big sea spawn punctual clouds drifting ...

3 sonnets.(Fiction & Poetry)(Poem)
May 1, 2007... 3 Sonnets In the dark a wall lizard bumps its snout against my foot then scampers up my leg. A kite squawks three times then falls asleep. A badger waddles through the bushes then takes a pee on a rock. A dull red star...

Animal.(Fiction & Poetry)(brother's life and sibling relations)(Essay)
May 1, 2007... FROM JFK, my brother Cyril calls me at home. Moments away from moving to San Francisco he wants to make contact. He always calls when he's on his way somewhere, which he states immediately so he has a reason to abort the conversation if it's...

A gallery falls in the forest: storm closes George Sawchuk's 30-year show.(PROFILE)
May 1, 2007... IT TOOK almost 30 years of work for 80-year-old George Sawchuk to create the Forest Gallery behind his Fanny Bay, B.C., home--and one night of heavy storms to destroy much of it. "You could hear the loud crack of the trees as they snapped...

Almost famous.(MUSIC)(All of Your Friends)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... THEY'RE still working on their stage presence and building their fan base, but Winnipeg indie pop gang All of Your Friends are like a band on fast-forward, getting airtime and opening slots with big name bands before even nailing down their...

Kidding around.(FUN)(Bunch family event)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... BEING THE PARENT of a young child doesn't have to mean relegation to a life of Dora the Explorer. Fed up with commercially oriented family events, Toronto parents Lisa Kaplan and Rebecca Brown launched Bunch. Named (at least in part)...

Dead Centre: Hope, Possibility and Unity for Canadian Progressives.(READ THIS)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2007... Dead Centre: Hope, Possibility and Unity for Canadian Progressives by Jamey Heath (John Wiley and Sons Canada Ltd.) 273 pages, $26.99 (trade) JAMEY HEATH'S central argument in Dead Centre is compelling. The federal Liberals are down on the...

Rockin' rural roadhouses.(ARTS & IDEAS)(Canada's music scenes)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... WHETHER it's the sound quality, the atmosphere or the price of what's on tap, every city has a music venue that won't let you down. But where do music aficionados who live outside Canada's urban centres go for that unfailing live-music...

TV nation: the idiot box: not just for idiots.(TELEVISION)(Televsion programs on digital videodisks)
May 1, 2007... I've never been ashamed to admit that I like television. I don't hide the fact that my cable package boasts over 100 channels, that I can recall with ease who won last season's America's Next Top Model or that I almost missed a friend's recent...

Give new a chance: three first-time novelists worth skipping Ondaatje for.(Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet by Joanne Proulx , Missing the Ark by Catherine Kidd, The Milk Chicken Bomb by Andrew Wedderburn)(Book review)
May 1, 2007... Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet by Joanne Proulx (Viking Canada) Missing the Ark by Catherine Kidd (Conundrum Press) The Milk Chicken Bomb by Andrew Wedderburn (Coach House Books The big Canadian novel of the year will undoubtedly be...

It's in the vault: is privacy possible in the digital age?(WEB)(cyberspace security)
May 1, 2007... Shortly before my computer gave up the ghost, I considered the possibility of establishing a "Personal Vault" for my digital stuff. I became aware of this added service through a convincing spam campaign from my internet provider, but remained...

Campus confidential: quick, it's time to study up on your university history before the pop quiz.(THEN & NOW)(Canadian universities and colleges)
May 1, 2007... 1827 Toronto's King's College, the precursor to the University of Toronto, receives its charter. While now the biggest university in Canada, with just over 70,000 full- and part-time students, it wasn't the first: King's College, Nova Scotia,...