Canada
Journalist/ Owner @ Sunflower Media Bylines: @torontostar @georgiastraight @globeandmail @canadaland, @cbc, etc Email: jm (at) sunflowermedia (.) ca
A t the start of 2020, Suvash Pokhrel was in danger of becoming a cliché. The thirty-eight-year-old had worked as an internal-medicine specialist in Nepal, but since becoming a Canadian permanent resident, in 2018, he hadn't been able to practise medicine.
What emerged from the scheduling clash - in a capital full of protests and clouded in tear gas - is a lesson in cultivation from India’s farmers to their government: the political divisions one sows eventually becomes the chaos they reap.
Hundreds of thousands of farmers are vigorously protesting new Indian legislation that they say will push them off their ancestral lands. Raji Aujla and Jagdeesh Mann, both Punjabi-Canadians from B.C., share why the issue matters deeply to the Indian diaspora.
Like Canada’s unhappy dairy farmers in 2015 who rolled up with their tractors to Parliament Hill to protest the impending TPP, India’s Punjabi farmers are concerned they will lose government protections (in their case minimum prices) that guarantee, if not a fair return, at least enough to keep their farms going into next season.
Fresh Start is a program that was launched by Engaged Communities Canada (ECC) in September. ECC has since hosted two “open salons” powered by a volunteer crew of local stylists and barbers — all of whom are donating their services pro bono. Manicure and pedicure services are also available on site thanks to the Fraser Health Authority’s Population and Public Health program.
Racism has long been a contentious issue at the heart of Canada's culture wars. And typically, it's been easy to identify. In recent weeks, it's been visible in the spike of hate crimes against Asian Canadians during the coronavirus pandemic.
The City of Vancouver, in tune with ongoing Canada and America-wide protests against systemic racism, recently put forward a dizzying spread of anti-racism measures. This equity-infused smorgasbord of actionable items includes: piloting anti-Black-racism and white-privilege awareness training, declaring a new Day of Action Against Racism and developing an "Equity Framework" to implement a race-forward equity and intersectional lens on city decision-making.
Donald Trump took his show on the road this week with a two-day visit to India. The U.S. president was there, officially speaking, to advance his trade agenda. His administration is trying to get the Indians to buy American turkeys. Little luck there, given India is a country of 1.3 billion people who are mostly vegetarians.
We are now more than two months into self-quarantining, and the struggles common across working families in this pandemic have become clear. Our debts are rising as monthly bills eclipse our (CERB) incomes, social isolation is proving harmful to mental health, and home-schooling while home-working is justifying why teachers deserve summers off.
This Southern Arizona city is at the centre of Sonoran food, the desert cuisine of the US Southwest
Recently, social media activism played a driving role in the ousting of Don Cherry from his cherished perch atop the world of hockey celebrity. And now, less than a month later, it has led to the resignation of an NHL head coach. It seems hockey, and the NHL in particular, has embarked on a #metoo-esque reckoning.
A century ago, Canada was a " White Man's Country." It was the era of overt race politics and colonialism. Indigenous peoples and Asian Canadians were barred from voting, and immigration from Asia was legally restricted.
VANCOUVER-Let's start with the standard take. In the First World War, Canadian soldiers first saw action in the spring 1915 when, fresh out of training, our volunteer and very green army of "farmers and lumberjacks"was assigned to the defence of the Ypres Salient in Belgium.
Liberators, revolutionaries and other nation-builders who have made an outsized impact on history have generally failed to write their legacies without bloodshed. In the 20th century, this list includes such figures as Mao, Fidel, Che and other leaders instantly recognizable by their first names.
Justin Trudeau's blackface is an exceptional performance in privilege. Our prime minister's ignorance of what is and is not racist has been exposed. But in the context of establishment Canada, his lack of awareness is just par for the course.
VANCOUVER-In recent years, various Canadian government bodies and institutions have "unerected" monuments and renamed buildings commemorating historical figures who contributed to the cultural genocide of Canada's Indigenous Peoples. John A. Macdonald, Hector-Louis Langevin, Edward Cornwallis, Joseph Trutch and Matthew Begbie - men who were proponents of odious anti-Indigenous institutions such as the residential school system - have all had their names scrubbed off plaques or statues...
Whether you are a newcomer, or a member of a visible minority living in Canada, there's a reasonable chance you or a family member, will one day be subjected to a random interrogation about your "cultural fit," contribution, or even appearance - and not necessarily by a fellow citizen with more social cachet than you.
For the past two weeks, as Jagmeet Singh 's polling numbers steadily ticked upwards, expectations had risen for a new orange wave à la 2011 - an #UpRiSingh of sorts, as far as overwrought Twitter hashtags go. Former U.S.
On a bitterly cold winter morning in Williams Lake, B.C., three sisters - Salakshana, Jeeti and Kira Pooni - arrive at the courthouse. The camera pans to reveal them staring up at the imposing four-storey government building, possibly the tallest structure in this sleepy northern B.C. sawmill town. The women steady themselves.
Sarena Parmar reboots the Russian playwright's story about family, heritage and the all-powerful hand of the market through the lens of a Punjabi Sikh household in 1970s Canada. The result is something as personal and of-the-moment as it is timeless and universal
Over the past 18 months, the #MeToo movement has decisively corrected-after decades of disadvantage-the balance of power for women working in Hollywood, navigating corporate boardrooms, and campaigning in the public sphere. The hashtag has brought into the media spotlight a range of odious behaviours, from sexual harassment in the workplace to the "traditional" entertainment industry practice of producers extorting sex from women in lieu of acting roles.
Earlier this year, Rena Heer, a former reporter for CTV and CP24 in Toronto, hosted a gathering at her home for other fellow Canadian Sikhs who had experience in the communications and media professions. This was not the usual Sunday afternoon chai and gossip session ubiquitous to South Asian households across the Lower Mainland.
Since Vancouver's incorporation as a city in 1886, approximately 98 percent of its councillors have been white. And every one of Vancouver's 39 mayors has been a white man. These are more than lopsided statistics. They are the sort of results one expects from a Russian or Zimbabwean reelection.
The ongoing story of phony absentee ballots, and vote-buying swirling around Surrey's current municipal election is cast with a perfect mix of characters-vulnerable immigrants, greedy developers, partisan journalists, and amoral politicians-to seem like a plot suited for an Indian soap opera, the nightly programming favoured by many of the city's 160,000 South Asian residents.
Over its 132-year history since incorporation as a city, Vancouver has had 39 mayors. All of them have been white men. Change seems to be coming, however, and suddenly. Two of the Vancouver's leading municipal parties will be running mayoral candidates from diverse backgrounds for the upcoming 2018 civic election now only four months away.
During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Russian government disseminated false stories that exacerbated division in the American electorate. This malwarelike campaign was extremely effective because of the high concentration of news consumption on Facebook and Twitter and because the supposed AI filters, the sentries on these megaplatforms, were powerless to stop the incoming tides of misinformation.
If you have ever visited an Ismaili home or business establishment, you may have come across a portrait of a gentleman who looks like an industry magnate or European aristocratic. He appears too "official" to be a family member, and then there's the positioning of the image-usually displayed prominently at the centre of a mantle or beneath special lighting.
To be the "last king" of anything means you left this world either a legend or a tragic figure. Maharajah Duleep Singh, the final monarch of the Punjab kingdom, who was forcibly separated from his family as a child, dispossessed of the Koh-i-noor diamond, converted to Christianity as a teenager, died a penniless, broken man in Paris, and is today buried in England, clearly falls into the latter category.
Feb 28, 2018 - According to the Indian government, Canada's prime minister is in league with Sikh extremists, radical cells are popping up across the country, and the threat of Khalistani violence is as imminent as ever. What is fuelling this narrative?
According to the 2016 Census, close to 600,000 Canadians speak Punjabi, comprising a significant portion of the 22.9 percent of Canadians who speak a non-official language as their mother tongue. Given Canada's language diversity, it's not surprising mainstream media outlets have struggled to provide coverage from within Canada's multicultural communities.
Nearly 70 years since South Asians won the right to vote in Canada, Jagmeet Singh has become the first non-white leader of one of the country's major political parties. Media coverage of Singh's historic victory has ranged from admiration of the new leader's alpha-male swagger to questions of whether he will hinder his party's appeal at the Quebec polls.
Gurjinder Basran's second novel, Someone You Love Is Gone, features a supernatural supporting cast including a ghost, a reincarnated poet, a boy who channels the departed and hundreds of invisible levitating haikus. There is even a Mason jar of dead poems interred in the back garden.
For more than 800 kilometers, the Crowsnest Highway ribbons along British Columbia's border with Washington, Idaho, and Montana. This mostly-single lane highway which is today popular with RVs and summer travellers is the modern incarnation of the Dewdney Trail built by the British during the mid-1800's gold rush.
Poetry is just the evidence of life-and if your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. Leonard Cohen, who said that quote, was for years Canada's brightest burning star in its poetry-verse. Six months after his passing, a young woman from Toronto is making a legitimate claim for his vacant throne as Canada's most popular poet.
Anyone who has travelled to the subcontinent of India knows it's not always such a salubrious destination. Incredible India, as the country sells itself in tourism brochures, can be incredibly chaotic, unwieldy, hot, dusty, venal, bovinely and polluted - and then you accidentally end up drinking the water.
Though I have family's roots in B.C. going back a century, I stumble when cataloging the "unique" values underlying Canadian culture. The default list reads like a dating ad: Canadians are compassionate, polite, enjoy nature.
Though it can be criticized as lip service, the Canadian government's ongoing "dialogue" on human rights with China sometimes has a bite. This was evident last week when China's touchy Foreign Minister threw a temper tantrum at a news conference in Ottawa when questioned about Beijing's dismal human-rights record.
Though Mewa Singh is written into Canadian history books as an assassin, in the Sikh community he is their Tiananmen’s Tank Man, the solitary protester saying no and standing his ground against the machinery of institutionalised repression.
Where the United States has Michael Phelps and Jamaica has Usain Bolt, India has its own Olympic hero in a nonagenarian living out a quiet retirement in Canada. Balbir Singh is India's most decorated Olympian: former team captain of the field hockey team, flag bearer at the 1952 Helsinki games, and the highest scoring player for the national team.
However, given the billions of dollars flowing out of China and landing in Vancouver real estate, it seems that the dirtier a butterfly gets when flapping its wings in China, the greener Vancouver becomes.
This fusion of religion and politics in India, do you believe this has had an influence in the way the ‘love laws’ of that country have been played out – the term "love laws" alluding to the reference you made in your book The God of Small Things
At Hollyhock, halfway from where you start to where you want to be could be a five day course in African drumming. Or a three-day practicum in nature photography. Or perhaps even intensive work with a Vipassana instructor. Hollyhock is a coastal retreat located on Cortes Island in the Georgia Straight, and an all-inclusive stay here is unlike most seaside resorts.
Cliches aside, 'health is wealth' is as relevant in youth as it is in our golden years. In our rough and tumble hyper-competitive society, too many of us exhaust the first half of our lives pursuing the latter at the expense of the former, and then the last half expending the former to renew the latter.