Canadian politics

Meet the director of Saving Face

Mar 132012

Pakistani-Canadian woman wins Oscar for documentary.

by Mehdi Rizvi

"All the women in Pakistan working for change, don't give up on your dreams," said Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. "This is for you," she said, as she and her co-director Daniel Junge accepted the Oscar for best documentary in the short-film category. Saving Face, about acid attacks on women's faces became the first Oscar won by a Pakistani (a Canadian-Pakistani), in that country's sixty-four year history.

Born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, Sharmeen Obaid went on to earn two Masters degrees from Stanford University. She came to Canada in 2004, and now divides her time between Karachi and Toronto. Her films focus on the hybridization of cultures, changing moral parameters and evolving social values across continents.

Income gap widest in the West

Jan 032012

Canadian politics

Alberta and BC have the most unequal after-tax incomes in Canada.

by Gillian Steward

You don't have to look far in either Calgary or Vancouver to see glaring signs of the widening gap between rich and poor. Women push shopping carts full of bottles and cans past gleaming new condo towers. Men line up outside a homeless shelter in the shadow of the Calgary Tower.

How BC Rail was made to disappear

Jan 032012

Canadian politics

In retrospect, only small timers got caught in the BC legislature raid.

by Bill Tieleman

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.
– George Bernard Shaw

What happened when an unprecedented police raid on British Columbia's legislature took place eight years ago, during the winter holidays?

How did the BC Liberal government's $1 billion privatization of BC Rail spark the province's biggest political scandal in decades?

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