On our journey through the food sustainability landscape, we’ve had an introduction to what the food system is and to some of the major social and environmental impacts which make it unsustainable. Our minds naturally turn to the question, “Well, we all have to eat! How can we address these problems and make our food […]
Do concerns about Canada becoming a “health care safe haven”* justify denying irregular migrants medical coverage when doing so could put the person’s life at risk? This is a question on which people can—and no doubt will—disagree. It is also a question on which Canadian courts and the United Nations Human Rights Committee (a body […]
Earlier this month the World Wildlife Fund released its Living Planet Report, and the evidence is undeniable: life on this planet is being destroyed at an unprecedented rate. Between 1970 and 2016, populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish have declined by an average of 68%. Three-quarters of the world’s ice-free land has been […]
One of my areas of research is philosophy of race, so I was initially interested in Nick Cannon’s Cancellation (hereafter, “CC”) because it demonstrated how easy it is for any of us to fall prey to stereotypical views about race. Cannon is a Black American, but that doesn’t make him immune to being racist. We […]
When a pseudoscience product is behind my computer screen or only attainable through an infomercial, though it bothers me, I feel safe-guarded because I can choose to tune it out. What’s more harrowing in my opinion is when a pseudoscience product finds its way to my hometown, sneaking into my grocery store. One product that […]
My first blog introduced the thorny questions facing food sustainability scholars who want to inform food policy and everyday decision making. The second blog then examined the food system through the lens of COVID-19 to discuss some of the socioeconomic, health, and justice dimensions of food sustainability. This month, I’m going back to basics a […]
How safe are dating apps? The answer is that we don’t really know (sorry). We lack scientific data in this area – official statistics aren’t properly collected, reporting is low, and overall there are a lot of gaps. What we do know is that online dating does not come without risk, and sometimes the risk […]
I am angry. I am angry that it has taken a combination of a global pandemic and an uprising of Black and Indigenous peoples (leading a multiracial coalition) for Canada to engage with the entrenched, structural racism that underwrites life in Canada for those who are not white. I am angry that this uprising has […]
Can 12 artists and six researchers team up together to change the face of gender and health research? I think we can. Last summer, I had the opportunity to attend a course about sex and gender within health and health research. The course was commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, and […]
Quite often, when I tell people that my academic interest is public international law, I get a response along the lines of: “That sounds interesting! [brief pause] What is public international law?” Since this is one of my first OpenThink blogs, I thought it would be fitting for me to address this question. Simply put, […]