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When Pope Francis tells the world that it is better to be an atheist than a hypocritical Catholic, he is using the incredulous folks as the bar for what is usually seen as immoral or sinful. But here we are, post-backhanded compliment, and the world seems to be rushing to give him more progressive legitimacy.

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"Wow, you're old, Mom." Ever since I turned 50, a scant three years ago, my kids have uttered this out loud many, many times, as if I need convincing of the fact. I don't necessarily feel that I'm in my 50s, most of the time. But when I hear people saying that 50 is the new 40, it makes me laugh out loud.

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My Jamaican grandparents came to Canada in 1967. My entire life, the Jamaican-Canadian trajectory story from their humble Caribbean beginnings, to the United Kingdom where they met as students, and finally to Canada with their four young children for opportunities they could not afford in Jamaica, has been etched into my conscience as a constant reminder of how far our family has come.

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More than anything, I want this government to get real about managing health care. Media has a key role to play in that. Like it or not, media informs our perception of reality. Media shapes how and what the public talk about. That influences government priority. And that is why balanced journalism must be protected.

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If the government can take my family's cards and deny us our heritage because they do not like the cost, then they can take anyone's card, deny anyone's heritage and human rights, whenever they deem the commitment to be more than they had initially bargained for.

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In re-opening NAFTA, President Trump runs the risk of falling into the same kind of black hole created by Smoot-Hawley 87 years ago. Millions of Americans eventually lost everything after having been sucked in by their government's predictions of prosperity -- much in the same way as they are being sucked in today.

Brett Tarver

I've come to Somalia with World Vision, to meet children living on the brink of famine. The United Nations issued the warning last week. If the rains fail again, and if international aid is not taken, Somalia could see a repeat of the 2011 famine which killed more than 250,000 people.

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On January 20, 2017, producers for the CBC program Marketplace printed t-shirts containing racist logos and mottos, including "white power" and "white pride world wide [sic]," and hired a middle-aged white man to stand on a Toronto street to peddle the t-shirts and yell racist slogans.

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It's getting pretty frustrating having to tell people, especially white people, what racism looks like. As a black woman, it's heartbreaking to see how such incidents are handled and how they are reported and discussed in the media. Most frightening, is the direction in which Canada is going regarding race relations.

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They launch crusades of violence against the easiest of targets: the racialized Other, the immigrant, the slum dweller, the refugee. They promise a return to a Utopian past at the expense of their chosen scapegoats - each one of a certain colour, geographic origin or religion - only to guarantee an impoverished future for us all.

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Since Justin Trudeau became prime minister, I estimate that there have been over 56,000 "police reported incidents" of cannabis possession in Canada. Note that these are not cases where people are being arrested for a more serious crime, and the police also find a joint in their pocket. These are "federal statute incidents reported by police, by most serious offence."

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We've spent a lot of time off our feet and this hasn't been the healthiest thing in the world. You might think the idea that sitting can make you sick is weird but when you realize adults are sedentary for 60 per cent of the day and the average person sits six hours a day you can see how inactive we really are.

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I have treated patients with breast cancer for more than 30 years as a medical oncologist. And I have found that most of the women in my practice are desperately looking for things they can do beyond standard treatment to increase their chance of cure. Unfortunately, many fall prey to false claims they read over the Internet or hear from well-meaning friends and relatives.

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This leafy green does wonders for your skin and hair, benefits your overall bone health, provides you with a healthy dose of vitamins and nutrients, and is a good source of iron. So if you aren't already making spinach part of your regular diet, it's time to start. And once you discover these delicious recipes, there will be no turning back.

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I recently wrote a post about who marries an extreme narcissist. Now, I'm going to talk about what happens to the children of extreme narcissists. In my practice as a psychiatrist, I've encountered many such children and they've all been adversely affected by having one or both parents with this personality type.

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The death of my phone as the catalyst to the death of my attachment to the internet and social media. That the loss of my phone is the best thing to happen, ultimately allowing me to emerge not only spiritually superior but with a life philosophy on the art of a tech free lifestyle. Sadly this isn't such a tale.

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News that Bob White, founding president of the Canadian Auto Workers, one of the founding unions of Unifor, had died on Sunday made headlines across the country, and shook me and many others involved in the labour movement and social justice causes to our core.

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All of a sudden, it was OK for America to get back into hate crimes again. Behaviour that had been previously seen as scary stories from a discarded history text book are suddenly back in the news. Here we are, a long history of "haven't we become so much better" wiped clean with story after story of bigotry, Islamophobia, and Neo-Nazi ideals rising from the ashes.

Plan International Canada

As a Youth Advisory Council, our purpose is to provide Plan International Canada with guidance and insights that enable the organization to represent and mobilize a national network of youth, so it can live up to its commitment to improving the lives of children and youth around the world.

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If you tell someone you are planning an unmedicated birth, you are met with a grin and nod in that "uh-huh, you are going to be begging for an epidural" kind of way. If you say you are planning an epidural, they wax poetic about the joys of unmedicated birth. Everyone has an opinion on your birth, and it is almost always going to be the opposite of yours.

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The jury is in. According to a new survey, the vast majority of Canadians do not consider criticism of the government of Israel to be necessarily "anti-Semitic." This finding contradicts those who have been warning of a "new anti-Semitism" in Canada, where criticism of Israel is a veiled form of this despicable historic ideology.