Opinion

With a provincial election only months away, and with demands for forced quotas back in the spotlight, it’s fascinating to watch the uncomfortable public squirming of party leaders take place; trying not to alienate female voters while simultaneously circumventing demands to legally force political parties to enforce parity in their pool of candidates.

When the Tsleil Waututh (People of the Inlet) found out in 2012 about Kinder Morgan’s expansion plans (twinning the pipeline, dredging Burrard Inlet, increasing tanker traffic seven-fold to transport toxic bitumen to China), they held a community gathering on their reserve across the inlet from Kinder Morgan’s Westridge facility.

I know male rage really well. While the men in my real life are overwhelmingly good people, the men in my virtual life are overwhelmingly terrible, writes Nora Loreto. Years ago, the first time my life was seriously threatened, it was white hot, racist male rage that insisted they would find me if I didn’t stop talking about systemic racism.

The job of journalists is not to be popular, or go along to get along, but to pursue facts that matter – then let them fall ‘without fear or favour’. Which brings us to Canada’s bitumen bubble, and missing-in-action media coverage, which amounts to malpractice.

The "black letter" of the law changes all the time. Biological and geophysical realities change, but not in ways that we can control -- unless we are influencing them. Climate change is us, and the protesters against Kinder Morgan are acting on that premise.

This past Saturday, racial profiling involving the Montreal police again made the front-page news when a biracial couple alleged that they were violently mistreated by Montreal police officers for "walking while black". They were on their way to brunch at 10 a.m. when police intercepted them and told them that they were being “too loud”.

"This is what 54 years of continued denial of Indigenous rights for oil and gas profits looks like. This is white supremacy at work."

As the U.S. government pushes to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development, the entire way of a coastal plain, a people, and the collective memory of a relationship with the land is under critical threat.

Canadians are rightly proud that we provide access to universal health care. Yet when it comes to environmental health there is no adequate protection to the detrimental impacts of environmental contamination on health.

On March 31, an underwater pipeline carrying oil to a refinery in Balikpapan, Indonesia, broke, spreading crude over 20,000 hectares of Balikpapan Bay.

I spent four years in the Alberta legislature with Rachel Notley, from 2008 to 2012. I liked and admired her and was delighted when she became premier in 2015. Today when I watch her on pipeline and oil issues I ask myself, what happened to the Rachel Notley I knew? And I wonder if the same thing will happen to John Horgan.

Canada’s constitution grants them many rights, and it is far from certain that these rights have been respected in the pipeline approval processes. Currently, 18 cases are before the courts in this matter. Regardless of the rulings in these cases, the parties will certainly appeal, perhaps all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which could take years.

Is it really such a surprise that when you feed a troubled mind a steady diet of far-right media junk food, the end-result will be a fearful, angry, suspicious person who looks to violence as a solution?

Politics and economics have moved the struggle West, but it remains our struggle, says this open letter.

Is it possible for Quebecers opposed to the hijab to understand that a woman can be completely modern, independent, a progressive thinker, and able to conduct herself professionally, while still choosing to wear a headscarf?