Category: Canada

13 Empower Health: Week 1

January 24, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · health · health care · medicine · science · skepticism

So last week I noticed, with more than a little consternation, that the Vancouver Sun has begun publishing a feature it calls Empower Health:

Better health is not a destination. Your health is a journey of small steps, things you can do to improve your mental and physical well-being.

Empowered Health is a new locally produced television program that shows you the path to better health with weekly tips on eating better, improving your fitness and navigating the minefield of the health care system and the dozens of complementary and alternative therapies and practices.

Those of you who don’t know much about Vancouver aside from the excellent work that the Vancouver Skeptics do here may be unaware that it is a city full of woo-woo nonsense. One can’t walk a city block without stumbling over a reflexologist or a chiropractor or some other snake-oil peddler trying to separate fools from their money. Because Vancouver has a large population of young, well-educated and upwardly mobile people, it has succumbed to the stereotypical west-coast syndrome of buying wholesale into “alternative” practices. Add to that a large immigrant population bringing practices from their countries of origin and a well-developed sense of fascination with anything “exotic”, and you have a perfect recipe for this kind of hucksterism.

Now, ordinarily the only thing I read the Sun for is local news and Canucks coverage, but I figured I wouldn’t be doing my duty as a local skeptic if I didn’t take a swing at the glass jaw they’re dangling out there. So I will try, every week, to digest the claims made in these articles. … Continue Reading

13 #Mencall Kathryn Marshall things

January 17, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · crapitalism · feminism · forces of stupid · gender · hate · politics

So every time I see the kind of cruelty that is leveled against women for the arch-crime of existing, it always catches me flat-footed. I always approach things with a mindset of “naw, people can’t be THAT bad”. I am almost always wrong.

Case in point – watch this video:

Now, if you didn’t make it all the way through the video in one go, I don’t blame you. It took me 4 or 5 bites to actually force that turd down my throat. For those of you who couldn’t watch, I will briefly summarize. On a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC – roughly the equivalent of NPR but less… well, less NPR) program called Power and Politics, Evan Solomon hosts a debate between John Bennett of the Sierra Club and Kathryn Marshall of Ethical Oil. The debate is over the pipeline from this morning’s story.

Ms. Marshall has clearly been instructed to make the following points:

The Sierra Club accepts foreign donations
Foreign interests should not be involved in a Canadian regulatory decision
Ethical Oil is supported by grassroots donations
The pipeline creates Canadian jobs and is important to economic growth
Opponents of the pipeline want to oppose any development projects … Continue Reading

15 Tough language, soft heads

January 17, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · crapitalism · forces of stupid · politics

Imagine for a moment that somebody wanted to build a zipline across your back yard. Let’s say that, thanks to minimal consultation and a cozy relationship with the city bylaw officers, that they want to tear up your land so that they can shoot through your property in a quick and effective manner. I’d imagine you wouldn’t be too thrilled about the idea, especially if they’d done it at someone else’s house and some ziplining wacko had ended up kicking one of their kids in the face.

“But think of the jobs this will create,” the company would be quick to reply. “Thousands of Canadians will work on this zipline, building and maintaining it!” “That’s very nice,” you might reply “but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re going to destroy my property, and I don’t want it there. What if someone falls on my property and wrecks my patio furniture?” “Poppycock,” says the zipline company “any damage will be reimbursed and cleaned up.” “I don’t care,” you might say “I don’t want people zooming through my yard. I don’t trust you to replace my furniture – my uncle carved it and it can’t be replaced that easily.”

Let’s say your neighbour came over and said “you know what, it’s probably not a good idea to run a zipline through hir property – it doesn’t seem safe at all.” The two of you stand resolute in opposition to what you see as a dangerous and unwelcome intrusion onto your land. What would that make you? A proud homeowner? A defiant citizen? A good custodian of your sovereign rights?

Nope, you would in fact be a dangerous, foreign-supported radical: … Continue Reading

9 Movie Friday: Canada for President

January 13, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · funny · movie · politics

So this week I was pretty hard on my home and native land. I really do love my country, and am proud to be Canadian (although certain things are beginning to make me question that). Regardless of our current government’s assholishness, Canada is a wonderful place that does wonderful things. Yes, we have our flaws and must always struggle to do better, but we have a lot to be proud of too.

I caught this tweet from PZ:

And it made me think of the following video:

C’mon Americans – we’re not perfect, but we’re a whole lot better than pretty much any of your current options. You’ve been working so hard – why not take a nap and let Canada drive the car for a while?

Update: Canada has written everyone else a letter

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6 Whose revolution is it, anyway?

January 12, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · Occupy · politics · race · racism · skepticism

Anyone who has been paying close attention to the Occupy movement knows that “the 99%” is, in fact, several different groups. While it might make for good news reporting, #OWS is not a group with a unified message about corporate greed and income inequality. There is some truth to this narrative, but it is most certainly not the whole story. #OWS can more accurately be described as a collaboration between several different protest movements who have, for the moment, agreed to focus their attention on the overlap between politics and finance, because eliminating the problem will benefit all groups in some way.

There is an easily-drawn parallel between the affiliated causes of #OWS and the atheist/skeptic/freethought movement. They (we) are not a monolithic group with a singular goal – we are better described as a voluntary association of a number of disparate causes. There are freethinkers who wish to see the eventual disappearance of religion; there are others who simply wish religion was out of the public square. There are freethinkers who are activists because of the way religion treats women; there are others who fear for the security of the planet if fundamentalists control nuclear weapons. We do not have a single common goal, but we focus on religion (or, more generally, pseudoscience) because it is a common enemy.

The similarity does not end there, however. Just like religion does not harm all freethinkers equally – think of what an Iranian atheist faces compared to a Norwegian one – rising income inequality may be a universal problem, but there are some fractions within the 99% that, to put it bluntly, have more cause for concern: … Continue Reading

34 Racism in Canada: the myth and the reality

January 11, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · crime · forces of stupid · law · police · race · racism

One of the things I find particularly irksome about the stereotype that Canadians have about themselves (ourselves) is that we are a fundamentally “nice” people – so nice, in fact, that we don’t really have a problem with racism. It is the case that Canada’s history of racism is not as obvious as it is in, say, the United States. We do not have the descendants of slaves making up a significant portion of our population, and have managed to keep our national racist shame out of the headlines for the most part (at least until quite recently).

As a result, Canadians have managed to convince ourselves that racism is some else’s problem – that Canada is a bastion of inclusion and a safe haven for all people. Or if not so extreme as that, we at least believe that, deep down, racism isn’t that big of a deal here. The reason this is particularly frustrating for me is that, as someone who discusses race and race issues, I find myself having to run uphill to simply get someone to acknowledge that racism can exist here. Once that’s done, then comes the harder battle of convincing them that they have a role to play in addressing it.

Like any national myth – American exceptionalism, British imperialism, French superiority – the myth of Canadian racial benevolence is quickly shattered by even a cursory glance at the evidence: … Continue Reading

4 Why we #Occupy

January 10, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · news · Occupy · politics

I realize I haven’t written about the Occupy movement in several weeks. Unfortunately I have fallen victim to the same syndrome that I criticize in the major media outlets: once the novelty wears off, it becomes more of a struggle to find interesting things to say. Of course, because I get most of my content from those same outlets, their lassitude becomes mine. In my defense, I am a blogger, not a newspaper or a cable network – I do not share the same level of responsibility in reporting what is going on in the world.

Feeble excuses aside, I have certainly not done my job in defending the Canadian incarnation of the Occupation. An Occupation, I hasten to point out, that has not disappeared simply because its camps were razed. The Occupation lives online and in small committees that periodically plan (and execute) acts of protest. While the physical occupation is gone, Occupy Canada is very much alive.

I’ve had more than a couple of discussions with people who claim not to understand why Canada needs an Occupy movement. After all, they say, many of the banking sector reforms demanded by the Wall Street Occupation are already in place here. Money doesn’t infiltrate politics to nearly the extent that it does south of the border. Unemployment is lower, our social safety net is more comprehensive, and our right-wing politicians are about where the American president (a.k.a the vanguard of creeping socialist extremism) is. What exactly do we have to complain about?

Well, maybe this for starters:

8 Becoming Canadian

January 5, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · critical thinking · good news · race

As the child of an immigrant father, I am conflicted about what it means to be “a Canadian”. I spent my childhood living in a white community, surrounded by kids whose parents had been born in-country, if not in-city. I didn’t really start encountering immigrant families until I was in my adolescent years, by which time I had a fairly firm grasp on what I thought it meant to be ‘Canadian’.

As the years have passed and I’ve become more intimately acquainted with the varieties of Canadian experience, it’s become more and more difficult to justify my belief that Canadians ought to share a set of values. I think that everyone should always agree with me about everything, but I am willing to accept dissent within tolerance margins. Canada’s values are, for the most part, in concert with my own values – there is a certain amount of chicken/egg questioning that one must engage in, but I can defend most of my values beyond simply stating “because that’s what I believe.”

The question, though, becomes whether or not it is reasonable to expect newcomers to this country (like my father) to adopt “our” values. After all, as I have argued before, one of Canada’s strengths is that it doesn’t have a monocultural or monoethnic heritage: … Continue Reading

7 …and No Religion 2

January 3, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada

So everyone’s probably heard about the recent Cee-Lo debacle in which, while singing John Lennon’s secular anthem Imagine, the hapless boob decided that Lennon needed a quick re-write. Instead of “…and no religion too”, as is befitting the rest of the verse, Cee-Lo decided to swap in “…and all religion’s true”, which is a profound statement that he has absolutely no idea why that’s logically impossible.

While the blunder was incredibly stupid and arrogant, it does have the inadvertent effect of bringing two important topics to light. One: that religion is still trying to bully secularism, despite their repeated assertions of ‘persecution’ (which, to them, means not being able to do whatever they want). Two: that Kamloops, BC will once again be hosting the Imagine No Religion conference this May.

The list of speakers includes:

Physicist Lawrence Krauss;
Atheist Experience co-host Matt Dillahunty;
Author and activist Maryam Namazie;
Skeptically Speaking host Desiree Schell;
Some bearded guy named PZ Myers;
and many others

There’s free daycare, and Sam Singleton will be doing his now-legendary Atheist Revival service. I’ve never been to a skeptic/atheist conference before, but I’ll definitely be attending this one. How can I not? It will be my first chance to meet fellow FTBorgs Matt and Maryam, to catch up/compare beards with PZ, and to hang out with Chris DiCarlo again.

The early-bird deadline is coming up real soon (Feb 1st), so get your tickets NOW!

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17 Because y’all need a prodding from time to time

December 20, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · news · racism

When I discuss racism, I devote most of my time to exploring it in its modern context. This usually manifests itself as systemic practices that result in de facto racism (that is, having the same effect as intentional racism), or as subconscious ideas that amount to the same thing as active prejudice. These kinds of commentaries intentionally neglect the kind of violent or hateful acts that we associate with ‘classical’ racism, because I do not wish to become fixated on a phenomenon that is very cognitively available but far less common.

However, from time to time I feel it necessary to remind you (and myself) that this kind of white-hooded cross-burning racism is still alive and well:

Two Lower Mainland men who police say are in a neo-Nazi group are facing assault charges in connection with disturbing attacks on minorities. The B.C. Hate Crime Team announced the charges against Robertson De Chazal, 25, and Shawn MacDonald, 39, at a news conference in Vancouver Friday. The team, a joint RCMP-municipal police unit, conducted reviews of four assault files dating back to 2008 and unearthed new evidence that led to the charges against De Chazal and MacDonald, who police say are linked to an international hate group called Blood and Honour. … Continue Reading

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