A
    Amy McNeill

    Amy McNeill

  • Youth job security plunging, unemployment remaining steady since 1976, says sweeping new Statscan report

    A report published by Statistics Canada said full-time work is decreasing for young labourers. A new study from Statistics Canada said over the last four decades, young people have seen their job quality decline, even as the unemployment rate remains virtually unchanged since the 1970s. In a report released this week, the national statistics office said the unemployment rate in both 1976 and 2015 is about 2.3 times higher for 15 to 24-year-olds than workers aged 25 and older.

  • Politics emerging as new form of entertainment, political campaigner says

    Election campaigns — and results — can sometimes read like fiery, cutting primetime dramas these days, with the U.S. presidential election and the Brexit vote becoming the poster children for the unexpected plot twist. For John Laschinger, a Toronto-based political campaigner, those two campaigns prove that current political discourse allows — and even encourages — scathingly divisive tactics, all in a bid to engage with today’s more entertainment-centred masses.

  • Nuke found off B.C. coast is tip of the iceberg, says expert in rotting underwater munitions

    Smyrichinsky found a decaying nuclear weapon when he went diving earlier this year off the coast of Pitt Island, a small island near Haida Gwaii, B.C. Officials suspect the device was from an American air bomber that crashed during the Cold War in 1950. Terrence Long, founder and chair of the International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions (IDUM) says this finding is more dangerous than we might think. The retired military engineer worked extensively on the landmine eradication treaty that Canada signed in 1997.  After returning to Nova Scotia to start managing offshore waste in the oil industry, he heard about the danger of underwater munitions while working with local First Nations communities who were campaigning for awareness around underwater munition dumpsites.

  • 'Secrets of a Black Boy' analyzes Toronto's Regent Park gentrification

    Wedged within Toronto’s overhaul of a lower-income neighbourhood is Secrets of a Black Boy, where song and soliloquy reveal untold stories of young black men.

  • New grads earning under $25K get a break on loan repayment, but student activists say it's not enough

    At the 2015 All Out protest, Canadian Federation of Students Nova Scotia called on supporters to tell the government education is a right, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Starting Nov. 1, students who borrow money from the federal government will not be required to repay their loan until they earn at least $25,000 per year. It looks like a windfall for recent graduates, but national chairperson for the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) Bilan Arte says this initiative isn’t enough.

  • PHOTOS: Astronaut Chris Hadfield took artists on an Arctic expedition

    Astronaut Chris Hadfield took ten artists on a journey to the Arctic with one simple purpose in mind: to capture the cold, desolate and sometimes surprisingly lively and fearsome land that to most Canadians, seems otherworldly. Hadfield, who became the first Canadian to command the International Space Station in 2013, posted a call for artists on his Facebook page earlier this year inviting applicants to join him on an 18-day arctic expedition to the Canadian High Arctic from Aug. 22 to Sept. 8, 2016. Photographer Vivienne Gucwa was one of the ten chosen for the journey.

  • Alberta student drumline joins Saskatchewan Roughriders drummers for big league lesson

    Drumlines might not be the most Canadian tradition.  Football games usually find fans freezing by the second quarter, but Mr. Swendsen’s middle school drumline is working to get people pumped about local football with a little help from the CFL.  Barrett Swendsen is the band teacher at Bishop Lloyd Middle School in Lloydminster, Alta. He heads a drumline of 22 children that performs at local football games. He took them on a six-hour bus ride to Regina, Sask. on Oct. 21 to participate in a clinic with the Saskatchewan Roughriders drumline. ...