Columnists

Ski dreams

Nov 122012

Drifting through powder snow together brings true grace.

by Richard Wagamese

November is magic time at our house. Sometime in late October I’ve already started watching the weather forecast at our favorite ski hill, a forty five minute drive away. That’s one of the first things I do every morning once the leaves fall. The accumulation of snow is vital to my well being because that hill opens around the middle of the month — an event that is right up there with baseball’s spring training for me. That’s huge.

Lessons from a Superstorm

Nov 082012

Science matters

What will we learn from Sandy?

by David Suzuki

The storm that wreaked havoc on Caribbean nations and the US East Coast in late October offers a glimpse into our future. Along with recent heavy rainfall, flooding, heat waves and droughts throughout the world, it’s the kind of severe weather event scientists have been telling us to expect as global temperatures rise.

Jobs that create poverty

Nov 052012

Equality time

Increased numbers of NB workers earn only minimum wage.

by Jody Dallaire

More than 12 percent of all female employees in New Brunswick are earning minimum wage — 19,400 working women in 2011. Given that 8.2 percent of female employees across Canada earn the minimum wage, NB’s 12.2 percent is the highest rate in Canada.

And you can forget the stereotypes. Few minimum wage workers are teenagers flipping burgers after school. The majority of them are adults — 70 percent of female minimum wage workers and 63 percent of male are aged 20 or more.

Close, but an edge to Obama — and maybe to Canada

Nov 042012

Insight

Canadians find Romney's belief in the free market touchingly quaint.

by Geoffrey Stevens

If Canadians could participate in tomorrow’s US presidential election, their votes would surely go overwhelmingly to Barack Obama.

We can learn from nature’s genius

Oct 312012

Science matters

We need to look at the way we create and introduce technology.

by David Suzuki

I’ve always been more interested in organisms that can move on their own than in stationary plants. But when I canoe or hike along the edge of lakes or oceans and see trees that seem to be growing out of rock faces, I am blown away. How do they do it?

Tame report domesticates male violence against women

Oct 292012

Equality time

NB special committee ponders, produces neutered text.

by Jody Dallaire

After three years of study, a multidisciplinary provincial committee struck to review policies on domestic violence deaths has released a “first step” report. Having looked into the files of all “domestic homicides” between 1999 and 2008 — files from police, courts, coroners, social and health care workers — the committee came up with a rousing recommendation to standardize all information gathering from now on.

US: A nasty election, devoid of substance

Oct 292012

Insight

Polls still show Obama ahead with Electoral College votes.

by Geoffrey Stevens

This United States presidential election has been dominated by two emotions, both of them negative. One is disappointment in Barack Obama. The other is discomfort with Mitt Romney.

It’s been a nasty election, one singularly devoid of intelligent substance. So perhaps it is appropriate that disappointment and discomfort should be determining factors.

Harperites’ budget costs: autonomy, democracy, climate

Oct 242012

Science matters

China deal and budget sacrifice democracy to short-term goals.

by David Suzuki

Why, when so many people oppose the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project, would government and industry resort to such extreme measures to push it through?

The problems with the plan to run pipelines from the Alberta tar sands across northern BC to load unrefined, diluted bitumen onto supertankers for export to China and elsewhere are well-known: threats to streams, rivers, lakes and land from pipeline leaks; the danger of contaminated ocean ecosystems from tanker spills; rapid expansion of the tar sands; and the climate change implications of continued wasteful use of fossil fuels.

The benefits aren’t as apparent.

McGuinty makes a very messy exit

Oct 222012

Insight

And: good-bye to good natured, outgoing former Leftenant Governor Lincoln Alexander.

by Geoffrey Stevens

Looking back, it seems clear that Dalton McGuinty would be carrying on as premier of Ontario if only his Liberals had won that darned byelection in Kitchener-Waterloo last month.

Housework is a gender issue

Oct 212012

Equality time

An idealized vision of housework in the 1960s

New article shows women still do twice as much housework as men.

by Jody Dallaire

Two Université de Moncton professors in psychology, Mylène Lachance-Grzela and Geneviève Bouchard, recently published an article titled: Why Do Women Do the Lion’s Share of Housework: A Decade of Research. The authors reviewed ten years’ worth of research (from 2000 to 2009) about household sharing of unpaid work in the United States. They define “unpaid work” as routine tasks like meal planning, cooking, cleaning up after meals, grocery shopping, laundry, yard work, household maintenance, paying bills and car maintenance and repairs.

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