Two weeks ago Jack Layton, the leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) of Canada, passed away after battling cancer. Although he came to Montreal quite often, I first had a chance to see him speak live only last November during Question Period in the House of Commons which I was attending as part of the McGill Women in House program.

I was absolutely taken by how he questioned with strength and resolve Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan, climate change accountability and the use of unelected senators by the government to kill a bill that passed had majority approval in the House. In a room filled with extraordinary men and women, Jack Layton stood out.

Following reports of his passing, I felt devastated that a person I’d come to respect so much… I was going to write back then, but the only words that I could write were ‘So sad… so very sad…” I couldn’t make sense of my own reaction, was this man not just a politician that I’d never even met? Yes I’d watched Layton speak time and time again after and was impressed by his views on how we can tackle the problems in society by empowering and mobilizing every citizen. Yes I was living in Québec at the time the NDP sweeped the election under Layton’s leadership, a feat considered impossible for a federalist party. But he was more than that.

By Andrew Vaughan / The Canadian Press

Mudslinging and negativity are a part of every election, and voters often stand by and watch as they would a carnival of idiots, wondering which party seems less like a trainwreck. But Layton did it another way. Where others wear promises of a better tomorrow on their sleeve, and forget everything as soon as they are elected, Layton rolled up his sleeves and stood with the youth, with the working-class, with the immigrants, with the veterans, with the elderly… He understood our concerns, he stood with us, he became our friend: Jack.

And it was for our friend, Jack, that public squares were covered with chalk-written memorials.

By Jackman Chiu

Two weeks ago I went to a vigil held in Montreal’s Mont Royal to remember Jack. I stood there alongside hundreds of people with candles in hand, under stony angels and a starry sky, singing songs from “Oh Canada…” to “This land is your land, this land is my land… from Bonavista, to Vancouver Island…” (yes, the Great North has its adapted version). Someone speaking at vigil said “Jack loved people.” He united them too. There people of all ages, of all backgrounds, of different political stripes cried and sang alongside each other, mourning and paying their respects to a great person in their own way.

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He was a person with so much to do and so far to go– he could have changed the world– But as the days pass, I contemplate less and less what could have been, and instead focus on what could be– Jack’s last words to Canadians:

“Love is better than anger.
Hope is better than fear.
Optimism is better than despair.
So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic.
And we’ll change the world.”

Looking at these words up on my wall, I smile– remembering a man who has changed the world with a dream that will last longer than any lifetime.

By Garnotte / Le Devoir

My first article in the Daily! Pretty exciting for me…

http://www.mcgilldaily.com/view.php?aid=6715

Alberta: Tar sand wasteland
By Marzieh Ghiasi
Monday, November 19th, 2007

Author decries rush to exploit Canada’s natural resources

In northern Alberta, an estimated 174-billion barrels of black gold lie trapped in grains of sand, and capitalizing on this dormant cash cow has become a national obsession.

In the recently published Stupid to the Last Drop, award-winning investigative journalist William Marsden critically examines the oil boom in the Alberta tar sands, a sprawling industry that has promised to make Canada the new Saudi Arabia. In his non-linear but fluid style, Marsden argues that, while Albertans may see some marginal gain from this relentless resource exploitation, Canadians stand to lose a lot.

The tar sands are thought to have been made by geological forces which pushed oil up into the limestone and sand landscape. Composed of bitumen – a viscous form of crude oil, silica sand, clay, and water – the tar sands present a unique challenge in resource extraction and are famously expensive to exploit. Just how much are people willing to sacrifice to extract this oil? Marsden contends: everything.

Stupid to the Last Drop begins in 1957 with an American paleontologist, Manley Natland, and his proposition for Alberta’s future: a nine kilo-ton nuclear bomb set 1,300 feet below ground in the Athabasca tar sands to create a giant underground cavern, with enough heat and pressure to force oil into it. In spite of the obvious environmental hazards, including radiation leakage and land collapse, Marsden details the quick acceptance of this proposition. In just two years, the inconspicuously-dubbed “Project Oil Sands” gained support from a major oil company, approval from the U.S. Senate, a nod from the Canadian federal government, and a nuclear-bomb-to-go.
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