The Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) Community Volunteer Income Tax Program (CVITP) is celebrating 47 years of helping individuals prepare their income tax and benefit returns. CVITP volunteers help complete over half a million tax returns every year for individuals who have a modest-income and a simple tax situation. We are...

Hundreds of prominent international scientists specializing in climate and atmospheric science released an open letter today urging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to re-invest in climate science. The letter raises concern that a crisis is looming for Canadian climate and atmospheric research following the government’s failure...

More than 1500 early-career researchers in Canada and Canadian researchers abroad are sending an open letter to the Prime Minister and six Cabinet Ministers, calling for scientific rigour and transparency in Canada’s environmental and regulatory decision-making. “As the next generation of scientists in Canada, we are...

RCMP have found what they believe to be the body of two year-old Hailey Dunbar-Blanchette in a rural area near Blairmore, Alta. The body was located this afternoon during a police search based on information received in their efforts to locate her. Hailey’s family has been notified. “The RCMP extends its deepest condolences to Hailey’s […]

    Opponents of so-called free trade deals have always struggled with the question of why these international treaties don't generate more alarm and vocal opposition from Canadians. These treaties, after all, trump all other Canadian authority to make laws -- provincial legislatures, Parliament, the courts and even the...

“In a peaceful age I might have written ornate or merely descriptive books, and might have remained almost unaware of my political loyalties. As it is I have been forced into becoming a sort of pamphleteer.”—George Orwell, Why I Write, 1946 George Orwell warned of totalitarian states in his dystopic novel ‘1984.’ (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons) […]

On April 14, provincial and territorial leaders are to meet in Quebec City for a special Council of Federation meeting to talk about climate change.  Some prominent Canadians — and many others, less prominent but equally concerned — plan to attend a march there on April 11, in an attempt to get a message to […]

The World Federalist Movement has issued a press release about Canada’s new federal legislation ratifying the implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions — an international treaty intended to ban the use of  cluster bombs.  Canada signed the treaty in 2008, but has only now ratified it by passing the implementing legislation.  There is widespread […]

 The Canadian Nuffield Farming Scholarship Trust is accepting applications for their 2016 program.  Applications are due by April 30, 2015 and forms can be downloaded from the Nuffield Canada website at http://www.nuffield.ca. Three scholarships of $15,000 each are available for 2016. Nuffield Farming Scholarships are awarded to enthusiastic individuals, with a passion for agriculture and […]

Science Matters Vol. 17, No. 8 24 Feb 2015 We have to stop filling and killing the oceans with plastic By David Suzuki Eight million tonnes. That’s how much plastic we’re tossing into the oceans every year! University of Georgia environmental engineer Jenna Jambeck says it’s enough to line up five grocery bags of trash on...