Pandora Revelations – Canada

In 2016 it was Panama. In 2017 it was Paradise, This year it’s Pandora. It’s appropriately named as, in Greek mythology, curiosity led Pandora to open a container left in care of her husband, which released physical and emotional curses upon humanity. In modern times an idiom has grown from the story meaning any source […]

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Crisis the Election Ignored – Bubbly!

Are you ready to shed a tear? “Champagne problems: Toronto restaurants facing shortage of big-name bubbly” was a headline in a Toronto Star article of September 10. A local restaurateur suggested this reason for the shortage: “people (are) being more celebratory now that things have kind of come back.” A broad range is covered by […]

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Make the Rich Pay

The long months of COVID have been brutal for many people in Canada and around the world. COVID has exposed and pressure cooked many of the pre-existing conditions and problems: inequality, run-down public health systems, utterly inadequate care for seniors, opioid pandemic and more. Repeated government failures have made COVID far worse. The delayed response […]

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A Shorter Working Week

Getting Off the Treadmill “Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living Barely getting by, it’s all taking and no giving They just use your mind, and they never give you credit It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it.”  Dolly Parton, “9 to 5,” 1980 It will come as […]

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Universities – where money talks

“He who pays the piper calls the tune.” Never has this saying proved more true than in a recent case from the University of Toronto. Last year, one of the U of T’s major donors learned that the university was about to hire a scholar whose ideas (supposedly pro-Palestinian) he disapproved of. Journalist Linda McQuaig […]

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London Killings

The Afzaal family: Yumna Afzaal, daughter, aged 15 – killed Madiha Salman, mother, aged 44 – killed Salman Afzaal, father, aged 46 – killed Talat Afzaal, grandmother, aged 74 – killed Fayez Afzaal, son, aged 9 – seriously injured Sunday, June 6, in London, Ontario saw a sickening, mind-numbing event – the premeditated, cold-blooded killing […]

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Patently absurd

Ditch the patents, Nationalize Big Pharma Canadians have understandably been concerned first and foremost with fighting the virus in their own backyard. But COVID is a worldwide threat and there won’t be a real victory, or real safety, until it’s won around the world. Vaccination in Canada has been moving along at a steady pace […]

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Pharma capitalism

How Canada lost its publicly owned vaccine producing facilities Phew! The vaccines have arrived. Notwithstanding the conflicting and confusing information regarding AstraZeneca, most Canadians are relieved to be seeing that the vaccination program, having previously experienced some hiccups, is now rolling out relatively efficiently, although unevenly and with the risk of more bumps in the […]

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