Canadian Shame-Based Heritage Moment

By stacey

In an end to my homage of the political comedy stylings of Rick Mercer, I give you a moment in our shame-based heritage. Enjoy… we invented it!

K’Naan on the Origins of Somalian Pirates

By stacey

This is a brief and very interesting interview with K’Naan, a hip-hop protest artist from Somalia now based in Canada. His music speaks to the struggle people face living in his home country, and the government and warlords that prevent peace and prosperity. In this interview he talks about the origins of Somalian pirates from an angle that no other media source has addressed… watch on.

Food for thought

By stacey

I read an interesting study the other day, and then watched news services light up their opinions on it. The study wanted to know whether there was a nutritional difference between organic and non-organic produce. This study was carried out over almost fifty years, and included numerous doctors, scientists, and researchers from around the world. One of their most widely discussed results was the following – in 7 of the 10 nutritional factors that were examined, there was almost no difference in nutrition between organic and non-organic produce. Read more »

Eco-Discrimination

By stacey

Do you want a new stadium in your backyard? How about a landfill or a nuclear power plant? I know what you’re thinking – who on earth would want to live with the noise, smell, or danger? I wouldn’t!

There’s a new buzz word that I really dig that’s being used to describe this conundrum – eco-discrimination. The hot topics of the day, such as the unanimous (albeit grudgingly) support in the Saskatchewan Legislature of nuclear power, or the equally hot debate surrounding Regina’s new stadium, often neglect that massive amounts of discrimination go into decisions like these. Especially when it comes to location – and the consequences are grave. Read more »

A Note on Partisanship

By stacey

There’s something that has caught my attention from the very start of the Regina Streets Magazine, and it continues to peak my interest since the start of this website. That is, we get just as many comments and compliments from the “right” of the political spectrum as we do from the “left”.

 I think that partisanship is both detrimental and ridiculous, in politics and in life. Take this magazine. Do I have to be on the left to talk about the causes and effects of poverty? Do I have to be on the right to have a strong corporate business model and believe in microdevelopment? Absolutely not. Read more »

The Provincial NDP and the Environment

By Greg Hluska

A few days ago, I posted one of the motions passed at the 2008 Saskatchewan Party convention.  Though Stacey and I disagreed about the exact intent of the resolution, we both agree that finding alternatives to plastic bags is a needed first step in protection our province’s fragile environment.  In the interest of being fair and giving equal coverage to all major parties in Saskatchewan, I decided that today’s article would be about some of the work the Provincial N.D.P. has been doing for the environment.

The N.D.P.’s web site has a very interesting passage about protecting the environment: Read more »

Banning Plastic Bags

By Greg Hluska

I was reading about Saskatchewan politics last night when I came across a list of resolutions that the Saskatchewan Party passed at its 2008 conference.  While this entire document is worth reading, one particular resolution put a big smile on my face.

BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Saskatchewan Party will undertake an analysis of alternatives to banning the use of plastic grocery bags.

Let’s ignore this sentence’s logical/grammatical shortcomings and focus on the meaning it conveys.  While it is definitely non-committal, the Saskatchewan Party vowed to research some alternatives to plastic bags!!  Frankly, I applaud them for this.

I see them every time I walk around downtown Regina – dirty, discarded plastic bags litter our entire city.  And the problem is not only municipal, it is global.  Millions of bags end up in the environment every year – it takes hundreds of years for them to break down.  They wreak havoc while they are breaking down – they harm wildlife, poison our water supply and litter our streets.

So kudos to our ruling party for looking into alternatives to plastic.  The time has come to ban plastic bags across our province and research is the logical first step.  I cannot wait to see this research transformed into legislation.