Research shows men are given second chances much more than women
Indira Samarasekera and Martha Piper have been leaders in post-secondary education every step of the way, right up to the presidencies of two of Canada’s top research universities. They explore what they’ve learned in a new book, Nerve: Lessons on Leadership From Two Women Who Went First. Samarasekera made University of Alberta history in 2005 as…
Americans facing voting barriers due to race, age, income less likely to have health insurance; implications for Canadian system
Americans who face barriers to voting due to their racial background, age or socio-economic status are also less likely to have health insurance, according to recently published research in The Lancet Regional Health - Americas. “We saw a significant relationship between barriers to voting and being uninsured, particularly among African Americans, Asian Americans, those living in lower-income households…
Discrimination is actually less pervasive in more competitive industries
One of the favourite myths peddled by proponents of government control is that under the free-market system discrimination is rife and leads to unfair outcomes for minorities, women, and other groups. Thus, they say, we need government regulation to correct this unfairness and equalize outcomes. The myth persists despite having been repeatedly debunked over decades,…
Training modules, advisory group designed to help nurses, caregivers and others overcome biases against older people
A University of Alberta researcher is hoping to start a Canada-wide revolution to combat discrimination against older people, starting with a change to the way nursing students are educated. “Ageism has been described by other scholars as the last “ism” that is socially accepted,” said Sherry Dahlke, associate professor in the Faculty of Nursing. “It’s subtle and…
Vaccination passports will restrict the rights of a minority of people to access services
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed in May that he would establish an agreement on creating a universal vaccine passport system with the G7 countries – including Canada. He told CBC News that nations require “agreements” on “COVID status certification and the rest.” Johnson was referring to how travel and passports will work as the…
The graves of residential school children symbolize the abject failure of decades of government policy
People are mad. Finally! And sadly, belatedly. The discovery of the locations where hundreds of children were buried around abandoned residential school grounds has touched the country in ways that perhaps even the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission did not. People are responding to…
British Columbia Civil Liberties Association director Harsha Walia reacted to the burning of churches by tweeting ‘Burn it all down’
British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) executive director Harsha Walia retweeted a Vice News article on June 30 about two Catholic churches being burned down in Canada. These terrible incidents were reportedly related to the discovery of unmarked graves of Indigenous children at three former residential schools. A retweet wouldn’t have been noticed by most…
Good people and bad people can be found in every group
We’re all influenced by the environment we grow up in and our life experiences. We thus adopt paradigms in our effort to make sense of the world around us. Sometimes these perspectives serve us well but other times our core beliefs prevent us from seeing the truth. Yet there’s perhaps nothing more life-giving than experiencing…
A single year to legalize such a wholesale change about the ending of human life signals a country moving away from its past
For two evenings recently, my Cardus colleagues and a panel of expert guests have engaged in an in-depth discussion on YouTube on Canada’s post-COVID future. They covered an impressive range of issues from education to the bifurcation of society as the pandemic exposed real, and really troubling, differences in how cohorts of Canadian society were…
The killings demand empathy for the victims, but also renewed commitment to freedom of faith
The news from London, Ont. regarding a murdered Muslim family is horrifying. It is chilling even to write about a driver deliberately ramming his pick-up truck into a father, mother, grandmother, daughter, and son – leaving only the young boy alive but bereft of his family. The police-reported motivation behind the crime should make it…