Profiteering from COVID

Several private clinics in Toronto are now offering COVID-19 testing, as the second wave sweeps over a poorly prepared province. The cost per test varies from $50 to $400. The rationale being played by the corporate heads of companies offering testing is that they are providing a critical service in a time of need, citing […]

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Horrors in Ontario’s “Care” Homes – Profit is Guilty

Tim Heffernan and Jim Sugiyama Cockroaches, rotten food, patients with ulcers left bed-bound, staff moving from unit to unit wearing contaminated gear, staff afraid to ask for supplies for fear of increasing the costs to the home. Those were just some of the disturbing conditions detailed in a Canadian Armed Forces report based on the […]

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COVID-19:The little virus that reawakened Anti-Asian Racism

On my way to work today, I was standing in a subway alcove, in a nearly deserted car. The scattered patrons were a motley crew of essential workers, some masked, some open faced. I don’t wear a mask while on transit (this was written before wearing masks was clearly good policy) – I am well, […]

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A homeless man sleeping rough in front of Toronto General Hospital

An Inner-City Doctor on the COVID-19 pandemic

As we enter the second month of the COVID-19 lockdown, I will share my thoughts, as an inner-city general practitioner in Toronto. Firstly, I do not consider myself as working on the frontlines. I have the good fortune of a well-paying job, a home that I partially own, adequate food on the table, am a […]

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The Fentanyl Crisis

In BC, fentanyl deaths have just kept growing from 50 in 2013 to 1,422 in 2017. In the US in 2016, 64,000 people died of drugs overdoses, up from 52,000 the year before. Fentanyl is behind the surge, as deaths from fentanyl have surged from around 2,000 a year before 2014 to over 20,000 in […]

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150 Years of Canadian State: Immigration: Exploitation and Exclusion

To mark 150 years of the Canadian state, we are publishing some of the articles from our magazine that covered different parts of Canada’s history. Almost all Canadians are immigrants or descendants of immigrants. The history of Canada, since the start of European colonization, is of waves of immigrants. Most were fleeing hunger, poverty, dispossession […]

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