Wednesday-Night

Pot and Politics: Canada and the Marijuana Debate; The top 10 Canadian health news stories of 2009; Swine Flu H1N1
Health Minister accepts ‘prudent’ advice not to fund MS treatment
Vascular procedure to treat multiple sclerosis is invasive and too risky for clinical trials, Leona Aglukkaq says
Health agency dampens MS patients’ hopes by rejecting clinical trials
24 August
Keep […]

Munk Debates 2009: Climate change is mankind’s defining crisis, and demands a commensurate response.
December 2009 Munk Debate on Climate Change “Be it resolved: climate change is mankind’s defining crisis, and demands a commensurate response.” George Monbiot and Elizabeth May took the affirmative; Bjørn Lomborg and Lord Nigel Lawson the negative. [Watch the debate]
Lomborg […]

More on Biofuels and clean energy
Race for biofuels heats up in Africa
The drive to produce crops such as sugar cane and palm oil that can be converted into biofuels is spurring land grabs across Africa that may contribute to food shortages and deforestation, Friends of the Earth says in a new report. […]

Background: Flight to Canada: The refugee process
(March 2010) Canada to reform refugee system: Kenney
Proposed reforms to Canada’s refugee system would increase the number of refugees accepted into the country and provide more funding to help them integrate into society and find jobs. Citizenship & Immigration Backgrounder
Points system fails immigrants and Canada

In a Bangkok apartment, Tamils […]

(Sierra Club) Environmental Impacts of Tar Sands Development; (Pembina Institute) Tar Sands Watch; Oil Notes on WednesdayNight.com; (National Geographic March 2009) The Canadian Oil Boom - Scraping bottom; More on oil & tar sands

The tar sands consist of a mixture of silica sand, minerals, clay, water, and most importantly, crude bitumen. The process of converting bitumen […]

Kilgour and Matas Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
David Kilgour and David Matas, two Canadian human rights crusaders, have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for their work related to the investigation of organ harvesting crimes against Falun Gong practitioners in China.
Infinithéâtre takes home the MECCA for best production
For the 2008-2009 Production of Blessed Are […]

Sidebar: Census backgrounder
Online Petition Keep the Canadian Census Long Form; Gardons le formulaire long du recensement canadien
Census debate still going strong across Canada - excellent summary of events to date (Aug 3)
Nonsense attacks on the census
(Boston Globe) THE REPUBLICAN National Committee’s new attack on the US Census is so nakedly transparent that you almost want […]

G8 Summit July 8-10 2009 ; Canada & the Arctic

For foreign policy-making, don’t look to Foreign Affairs
(Ottawa Citizen) … So what then is the policy role of Foreign Affairs — in Afghanistan or, potentially, anywhere else? What becomes of the Afghan Task Force when the Afghan war ends? Will it wither away — a highly […]

Canada 2010: G8 & G20 ; At Issue panel on The National (CBC)
No politics please, we’re nation-building: PM
WHITEHORSE - He stood astride an ice flow, F-18 jets roaring overhead for a perfect photograph, reannounced feel-good government initiatives and gave a rousing speech to party faithful warning of the evils of an opposition coalition.
But Prime Minister […]

See also PolitiFact.com - a veritable U.S. political Snopes ; More on U.S. (Foreign Affairs, Energy & Environment, even Sarah Palin, etc.) ; U.S. post 20 January 2009 ;
Q&A: Obama on His First Year in Office
Timothy Egan: Building a Nation of Know-Nothings
It would be nice to dismiss the stupid things that Americans believe as […]