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‘You Should Have Stayed Home’ tells a story of G20 violence and detentions

September 26th, 2013 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on ‘You Should Have Stayed Home’ tells a story of G20 violence and detentions)

Award-winning play is based on one citizen’s experience after being swept up by the Toronto police response to G20 protests—which constituted the largest peacetime mass arrest in Canadian history

picture 504You Should Have Stayed Home (aka #G20Romp) is a play about Tommy Taylor’s experience over 48 hours at the 2010 G20 weekend in Toronto. While trying to return home from his first ever protest as a law-abiding citizen at the “Free Speech Zone” at Queen’s Park, Taylor was swept up in a mass arrest, caged with 40 other people in a ten foot by twenty foot cage and denied drinking water until he passed out from dehydration. (more…)

Campaign for the reform of cannabis policy is underway

September 12th, 2013 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on Campaign for the reform of cannabis policy is underway)

If the Sensible B.C. campaign collects over 400,000 signatures from across the province, the group says there will be a referendum in British Columbia to decriminalize marijuana possession in 2014

amanda orumA group called Sensible BC is working to decriminalize the simple possession of cannabis in British Columbia through a proposal called the Sensible Policing Act. The Sensible Policing Act would amend the Police Act, to redirect all police in the province from taking any action, including searches, seizures, citations or arrests, in cases of simple cannabis possession by adults. This would apply to all RCMP and municipal police in BC. (more…)

‘Rape culture’ on display during university frosh events

September 12th, 2013 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on ‘Rape culture’ on display during university frosh events)

Pro-rape chants at St. Mary’s University and University of British Columbia lead to national attention and backlash

Photo by Michael Courier , www.michaelcourier.com

Photo by Michael Courier, www.michaelcourier.com

A chant promoting non-consensual sex with underage girls has created a firestorm of controversy on two Canadian university campuses during frosh week. ‘Student leaders’ at St. Mary’s University in Halifax were the first to be videotaped as they enthusiastically led hundreds of new students in chanting phrases including, “U is for underage…N is for no consent”. (more…)

Canada needs to be a leader in dealing with Indigenous issues, former PM says

August 1st, 2013 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on Canada needs to be a leader in dealing with Indigenous issues, former PM says)

Former prime minister Paul Martin says that the only way in which the vow of ‘never again’ can have any substance is if people have a full awareness of what happened

picture 495Food, health and nutrition historian Ian Mosby, in what he called the most difficult research project he’d ever undertaken, has revealed that between 1942 and 1952, some of Canada’s leading nutrition experts, in cooperation with various federal departments, conducted an unprecedented series of nutritional studies of Aboriginal communities and residential schools. (more…)

Pharma and medical research industries have routinely exploited poor, powerless

August 1st, 2013 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on Pharma and medical research industries have routinely exploited poor, powerless)

The truly shocking aspect of revelations concerning the use of native children as research subjects is that we were shocked by the revelation, says author Tom Koch

picture 496Demonstrations were held across the country Thursday July 25, 2013 as a growing chorus of Canadians urged the federal government to release documents related to nutritional experiments done on aboriginal children decades ago. The protests, which varied in size, were sparked by a report published earlier in the month that said 1,300 children in northern Manitoba and at six residential schools across Canada were deprived of food and used as subjects to test the effects of minerals and vitamins in the 1940s and 1950s. [source: CTV]. (more…)

The gap in the gender gap: Violence against women in Canada

July 18th, 2013 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on The gap in the gender gap: Violence against women in Canada)

Study shows how Canada lacks a coherent response to end violence against women—and says costs related to that violence rival those related to the use of illegal drugs

picture 493Progress on ending violence against women in Canada is stalled by the absence of a coherent national policy and consistent information about the levels of that violence says a study released by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

“The difficulty of collecting data about violence against women has been a barrier to progress in ending that violence,” says the study’s author Kate McInturff. (more…)