May 1, 2012

“Don’t worry, be happy” slogan could harm your baby DRUG BUST by Alan Cassels The people's briefing note on prescription drugs • It’s springtime in Canada and with nature in full bloom, it’s timely to reflect on reproduction in all its forms. If you’re in the drug manufacturing business, your organization exists to...

Apr 1, 2012

Seva® Canada, an international eye care charity based in Vancouver, turns 30 this month. Since 1982, Seva Canada has restored sight and prevented blindness in the developing world. To date, Seva and its partners have given the power of sight to three million people in Tibet, Nepal, India, Guatemala, Egypt, Cambodia, Malawi, Madagascar and Tanzania. But what...

Apr 1, 2012

DRUG BUST by Alan Cassels The people's briefing note on prescription drugs • Why is more money going towards drug discovery research than drug safety research? Because that’s what the government of Canada is paying for. Today's fortune-tellers, horoscope writers and other modern soothsayers are very compelling figures. They are magnets for...

Jan 13, 2012

Produced by The Beagle Freedom Project Jun 14, 2011 The Beagle Freedom Project’s second rescue of beagles who have lived their entire lives inside a research laboratory. These beagles have known nothing except the confines of metal cages. They have known no soft human touch, no warm bed, no companionship, no love. They have never been outside or sniffed a...

Dec 2, 2011

The legacy of “Occupy Everywhere” by Geoff Olson At the time of this writing, Occupy Vancouver’s tent camp is no more. Across North America, the remaining occupations are under siege from law enforcement and negative press, to say nothing of harsh weather. Is the global flareup from October 15 just a historical flash in the pan, and its...

Dec 2, 2011

FILMS WORTH WATCHING by Robert Alstead One of the main criticisms levelled at the Occupy movement has been that it is unclear what it is about. Critics have pointed to a plethora of issues – corporate greed, government debt, indigenous rights, unemployment, homelessness, ecological destruction, GMOs, climate change, and more – that seemed to be...

Dec 1, 2011

Beyond the camps by John Restakis As the co-op movement in Canada gears up for celebration of the UN International Year of Co-operatives in 2012, a very different movement has burst upon the scene, taking shape and occupying plazas, parks and other urban spaces in over 2,000 cities around the world. The Occupy movement, sparked with little more than a hope and...

Dec 1, 2011

by Lyndsie Bourgon Dr. Shiv Chopra is tireless. Speaking from his home in Ottawa, Chopra describes how he and his Health Canada colleagues were consistently harassed, reprimanded and eventually dismissed for whistleblowing on issues involving public health and food safety between 1988 and 2004. “It’s not just our right, it’s our obligation to...

by David W. Rowland If Health Canada has its way, the only place you will be able to buy your vitamins and supplements is in drug stores. The agency that claims “to ensure that Canadians have ready access to natural health products that are safe… while respecting freedom of choice” is covertly accomplishing a very different objective. It is...

Nov 3, 2011

article and photo by Geoff Olson It’s an image you may have seen around lately. You might recognize the pale, goateed face with the ear-to-ear grin from the 2006 film V for Vendetta. To disguise both his identity and disfigurement, the central character wears a mask representing Guy Fawkes, a 17th century Englishman who plotted to blow up the Houses...