This Magazine articles from November 2003

This Magazine archives from November 2003

Northern exposure.(Under The Hood; Canadian Arctic pollution and Dr. Gordon Edwards, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility)
November 1, 2003... "IF NOBODY LOOKS, THERE'S NO PROBLEM," DR. GORDON EDWARDS, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR), observes grimly. The Canadian Arctic keeps getting dirtier, but there have been very few studies done to back up...

Activism without email.(Salvo)(Column)
November 1, 2003... I RECENTLY SAW JANE JACOBS AT A BOOK thing. She sat like a little muffin next to her prepubescent publicist. I had interviewed her years ago for a TV show; she gamely sat in the back seat of a rented convertible as we drove around Toronto...

Road outrage.(Red-Handed; Fraser Institute report)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... THOSE CORPORATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS WHO make tax deductible contributions to the Fraser Institute sure got their money's worth this time. The right-wing "think tank" recently claimed that "Ontario could be faced with 50 more deaths, 3,900 more...

Fake organics.(Sign Of The Times)
November 1, 2003... HEY BIRKENSTOCK BABES AND PATCHOULI Princes, before you stock up on organic beautifiers, remember this simple saying: caveat emptor. The label may say "organic," but, warns the Minnesota-based Organic Consumers Association, (OCA) some labels...

Union busted.(Context; United Food and Commercial Workers vs. Wal-Mart Stores Inc.)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... SCORE ANOTHER WIN FOR WAL-MART IN ITS battle against the United Food and Commercial Workers. In August, the retail behemoth beat back the UFCW's campaign to unionize She Wal-Mart in Thompson, Manitoba. So why did so many minimum-wage slaves...

Integrity gap.(In The House; Noel Kinsella U.S.)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... PRESSURE IS BUILDING FROM VARIOUS CORNERS of Parliament to enact measures to protect bureaucrats who call attention to government corruption. Tory Senator Noel Kinsella and other parliamentarians argue that the government's proposed public...

Radiation nation.(reopening of Niocan mine has residents nearby worried)
November 1, 2003... EVER SINCE THE "OKA CRISIS" OF 1990, THE Mohawks of Kanehsatake and Quebecois from surrounding towns and farms wanted little to do with each other. Both sides nursed grudges over rock throwing crowds and wrecked homes, lost jobs and ruined...

Get invested.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2003... As a practitioner and advocate of socially responsible investing (SRI) I am continually dismayed by the contempt with which SRI is treated in the pages of This Magazine. While I was pleased to see the informative article on the appalling...

Western affront.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2003... Your article "Hopelessly de-voted" (July/ Aug) claims that "Canada is one of only three Western nations with no form of proportional representation." The "three Western countries" referred to are presumably meant to be Canada, the U.S. and the...

Hate mail.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2003... I am writing ha response to the comments made by David Ahenakew ("Speak no evil," July/Aug). I hope it goes without saying that his comments do not reflect the views of the First Nations community. I have fought for years against racism and for...

Who's this.(Letters)
November 1, 2003... Paul Barnsley is the senior political writer for Windspeaker, Canada's largest nationally distributed, Native-owned news publication. James Hrynyshyn is a Vancouver-based freelance writer. He spent several years working as a journalist in...

When things fall apart: the rise and fall of electronic learning.(Education)
November 1, 2003... TEN YEARS AGO RIVER OAKS PUBLIC SCHOOL was a glittering showcase of computer-based learning. Built in middle class Oakville, Ontario, this kindergarten-to-grade-8 school of 750 students boasted 150 state-of the-art computers. Apple, Sony,...

Back to the hinterland: after a decade of growth in high-tech and manufacturing, politicians proclaimed Canada a "northern tiger." But as Jim Stanford points out, our economy is un-developing before our eyes.(Economics)
November 1, 2003... CANADA HAS LONG BEEN KNOWN TO THE world as "a hewer of wood and a drawer of water." In the early part of the last century, an honourable tradition in Canadian political economy grew up to explain our historic status as a supplier of fur,...

True North.(... the problems besetting Canada's north give the lie to myths)(Editorial)
November 1, 2003... AS A KID, MY PARENTS GAVE ME AND MY BROTHER AN incredible gift: they drove us across the length of this country, twice to Vancouver, and once to the east coast. I don't know how they put up with us, a pair of precocious brats punching, poking...

Poisoned ground: years of turning a blind eye to a growing environmental nightmare in Canada's Arctic have left taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in cleanup. Industry and government say it can't happen again. But the signs that we've learned our lesson are anything but encouraging.
November 1, 2003... THE VIEW FROM THE AIR IS BAD ENOUGH. FROM A window seat, on the final approach to Yellowknife's airport, it is impossible to miss Giant Mine, an industrial scar on the outskirts of the territorial capital. Craters half-filled with...

South of 50: as the cultural machinery churns out modern equivalents of Nanook of the North, J.B. MacKinnon reflects on Canada's emerging southern identity.
November 1, 2003... "In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer." --Albert Camus AND WHAT A SUMMER IT WAS. A SUMMER FOR CONVERTIBLES and daiquiris, for barbecues and soft drugs. Too hot for politics. Too hot for the...

Qallunology: an introduction to the Inuit study of white people.
November 1, 2003... LIKE MANY INUIT BOYS OF MY GENERATION, I HAD fascination with Qallunaat that bordered on awe. Growing up, the few we encountered lived in warm wooden houses, while we lived in igloos. They seemed to lack no material thing. Their food was what...

On thin ice: as the pace of climate change accelerates, the North is taking on profound commercial, environmental and geopolitical significance. Gordon Laird travelled to the farthest reaches of the High Arctic and found Canada's influence waning and our sovereignty in question.
November 1, 2003... IT'S FEBRUARY, MINUS 40. I'M ON WINTER PACK ICE with Hans Aronsen, a hunter from Resolute Bay. It's too cold to talk--wind chill runs colder than minus 70--so all we can do is search off into the distance, the infinite white horizon of the High...

A break in the weather.
November 1, 2003... While the greenhouse effect has garnered headlines over the past decade, it's actually our oceans that regulate much of the Earth's surface-level climate. Oceans have incredible heat inertia: they act like a large energy battery, storing up...

Seventy-nine Furtive Glances at Gregor Samsa's Sister.(Poetry)(Poem)
November 1, 2003... Seventy-nine Furtive Glances at Gregor Samsa's Sister her shrine to him in her binder i just want to feel good all the time i can't just leave the suffering to others go have a life...

Small talk: Sherwin Tjia and Lee Henderson on the virtues of being short.(Column)
November 1, 2003... Sherwin Tjia Age: 28 Home: Montreal Other publications: Gentle Fictions and Pedigree Girls (both with Insomniac). Greatest dissatisfaction with the type of writing that gets published in Canada: The power of place--especially...

Love's auctioneers * appraisers antiques.(Short Story)
November 1, 2003... THE COUPLE HAD BEEN TOGETHER FOR A FEW years and although they couldn't know it then, there'd still be a few years to go before they separated. Naturally the couple had their problems. Sometimes she would ask for time to herself and he wouldn't...

Stink Mitt might be the only band ever to be profiled in both This Magazine and Hustler.
November 1, 2003... STINK MITT MIGHT BE THE ONLY BAND EVER TO BE PROFILED IN both This Magazine and Hustler. The Vancouver hip-hop duo throws a post-feminist ho party unlike any other act on the scene. Underneath the camp antics of Betti Forde and Jenni Craige are...

Alexis O'Hara.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... It's been a productive year for Montreal rail modern pop artist ALEXIS O'HARA. In July, after an extensive tour of the United States and Canada, she was off to the Dawson City Music Fest in the Yukon. O'Hara is mostly known as a spoken...

Kiss Painting.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... For those of us who think living life by our politics means not buying sweatshop products, voting NDP and recycling our Cotes Du Rhone bottles, Sandra Jeppesen's KISS PAINTING (Gutter Press) is a slap in the face. At its core, the book is...

General Idea Editions.(art exhibition touring North America in 2004)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... From Broken Social Scene to the Royal Art Lodge, these days it's all about the Dower of the collective What better time to see GENERAL IDEA EDITIONS and discover the prodigious output of Canada's original multimedia supergroup? For 25...

Northern light: Jose Kusugak, president of Canada's national Inuit organization, on life after land claims.(interview)(Interview)
November 1, 2003... WHEN CANADA REPATRIATED ITS CONSTITUTION IN 1982, THE existing rights of indigenous peoples were "recognized and affirmed." There was a lot of political maneuvering to get that brief mention of Canada's original inhabitants in Canada's...