All Posts Tagged With: "Elizabeth May"
Fighting fur, graffiti and hip-hop class & more #IdleNoMore
What students are talking about today (January 3rd)
Fur-trimmed Canada Goose coat Janne Aaltonen/Flickr
1. Canada Goose coats are a staple on cold Canadian campuses, but an a new campaign is trying to make them unfashionable. Furtrimisatrap.com, an activist website, says that coyotes are “stolen from their families and homes, these sensitive, intelligent animals often spend hours or even days stuck in cruel traps where common injuries include broken bones and teeth, gashed eyes and severe internal bleeding.” Kevin Spreekmeester, Vice President of Global Marketing of the Toronto-based company,* defended the product to the Winnipeg Free Press, saying Canada Goose is proud to support the people of the north “for whom [trapping] is their livelihood.” He also notes that coyotes are not endangered and that their fur protects against frostbite.
2. Green Party leader and MP Elizabeth May knows a thing or two about hunger strikes, having mounted one for 17 days in 2001 while demanding the government move families living near the Sydney tar ponds in Cape Breton. Now she tells iPolitics.ca that Attawapiskat chief Theresa Spence, on Day 24 of her hunger strike, should meet with Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan, whom Spence has refused to see since starting her starvation diet on Victoria Island on Dec. 11. Spence has said she will not eat until Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a representative of the Crown agree to a “nation-to-nation” meeting to discuss treaties. Meanwhile, a two-week old rail blockade by Aboriginal protesters in Sarnia, Ont. has ended. However, the tone of the “Idle No More” debate is getting uglier. After John Ivision at the National Post dared call Spence “hapless,” Gerald Taiaiake Alfred—a political science professor at the University of Victoria—responded by calling him a “racist p—k” and threatened to kick his “immigrant ass” back to Scotland.
Continue reading Fighting fur, graffiti and hip-hop class & more #IdleNoMore
What students are talking about today (November 22nd)
Elizabeth May, Black Friday, possible hate crime in The Soo
Elizabeth May (CP/Sean Kilpatrick)
1. Tomorrow is Black Friday, the annual sporting event during which Americans violently trample and pepper spray each other at Best Buy and Target, all for the thrill of scoring a cheap flatscreen TV. As a Canadian, I thought this was a day to look down on those south of the border with smug indignation, but, as Edward Keenan points out, 650,000 people from Ontario alone—more than the total number who watched Hockey Night in Canada during the 2010 playoffs—will head south looking for deals. And it turns out our own lust for bargains may be hurting our economy.
2. Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, has been voted Maclean’s Parliamentarian of the Year by her fellow MPs. Read this charming profile of May and then see who else won here.
3. Someone poured water on an international student from Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. and shouted “Go back to your own country,” reports the Sault Star. Police are investigating it as a hate crime. It happened, ironically, near a sign boasting of The Soo’s friendliness.
Continue reading What students are talking about today (November 22nd)
