Archive - Apr 2004

The number of homeless in Ontario is on the rise. So is the enforcement of the Safe Streets Act, which bans panhandling, and various other legislation designed to keep people off the streets.

- by John Dunn -

During a protest that I conducted on Rideau Street in the summer of 2002, I noticed some very disturbing things about the homeless population. The vast majority were youth, and almost all the long time street people that I had met over the years were nowhere to be seen. And despite the massive cuts to the welfare system, I noticed that the number of homeless persons had remained constant. This did not make any sense. I knew by experience that the vast majority of people who were cut off welfare would not have been capable of going to work because of the major barriers to employment.

- by Jane Scharf -

Anthony Fenton shares his impressions from a ten-day trip to post-coup Haiti

"Clerk Fatigue," by Heather Meek

The US is using a new approach to sidestep developing countries' unified demands

Last September saw the spectacular collapse of World Trade Organization treaty talks in Cancun, Mexico. Joseph Stiglitz, former Chair of Clinton's council of economic advisors and Nobel Prize winner described the talks as "the usual: hard bargaining, extreme positions, last-minute concessions, arm twisting, peer pressure, tacit threats of cutting off development assistance and other benefits, and secret meetings among a small number of participants are all designed to extract concessions from the weakest".

by Yuill Herbert

On March 10th, a man calling himself Joshua Murray was arrested for shoplifting in a Victoria Canadian Tire outlet. According to police, fingerprints identified him as Tre Arrow, an Oregon environmental activist listed on the FBI's most wanted list with a reward of $25 000 for information leading to his arrest.
- by Dru Oja Jay -

When I talk to my new friend Tom, we're not just talking-- we're metatalking. When I ask him how he's enjoying the weather, he tells me he is not enjoying it at all because it has too many future tenses. "Will it rain?" he asks me. Then answers himself, "In the afternoon it may begin to rain." "It will soon be raining."
- by Linda Besner -