Response to Refugee Crisis Must Include Expanding Refugee Healthcare

 The haunting image of Alan Kurdi’s lifeless body lying face down on a Turkish beach, and the subsequent revelation of the Kurdi family’s intention to seek asylum in Canada, have prompted many Canadians to ask what we can do as a country to help Syrian refugees. So far, our search

Ottawa Celebrates Diverse Cultural Roots

 Photo Credit: Connie Kaldor Embrace a return to your roots by taking part in the fourth annual Ottawa Grassroots Festival. The Grassroots Festival plans a spring weekend of family-oriented concerts and workshops each year thanks to its 100 per cent volunteer-run organization. The festival particularly focuses on folk music, dance

Ambulance Fees are an Obstacle on the Road to Care

 Imagine you’re a physician seeing a six month old child in clinic. She has a fever and cough, she’s working hard to breathe and her oxygen levels are falling. You know she needs assessment in the emergency room and requires transportation in an ambulance in case her condition worsens en route.

Wage Equality: Lessons from the public sector

 By Warren (Smokey) Thomas, President of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union As a general rule, women get paid less than men do. It doesn’t matter how you measure it. If you go by the average annual pay of all women in Ontario, women make 69 cents for every dollar

Women, Wages & The Workplace

 The year is 2015. Do women still make less money than men? Generally, yes, although the discrepancies are no longer the huge yawning gaps of the 1960s. A recent paper by Richard Shillington of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has analyzed public sector v. private sector wages. Shillington found

Putting the “Science” in “Science Fiction” – Energy Barriers

 In many works of science-fiction, people use walls of dangerous energy to protect important areas, contain prisoners and even protect starships from attack. These energy barriers are similar to force fields, but are different because they are made up of energy, that is harmful to whatever touches it and offers protection by disintegrating