Many processed foods contain ingredients certain people can’t eat. But those ingredients must be listed right on the package. Does that mean we have the knowledge we need to protect ourselves?

If you’ve got food-specific allergies or dietary restrictions, you probably know the answer. Too often, vague label descriptors like “natural flavour” disguise ingredients we try to avoid. Unfamiliar words like “casein” replace commonplace ones like “milk.” Making an informed decision about what we eat is harder than it needs to be.

On the evening of Monday, …

Many Canadians consider Omar Khadr´s treatment by American and Canadian authorities to be immoral, and even illegal. But few understand the legal precedent set by his plight.

Canadian officials not only helped violate Khadr´s Charter rights; they made it possible for those violations to be made against any of us. Canadian law has changed significantly since 9/11, making the average citizen far more vulnerable to abuses of power than before.

On the evening of Monday, September 17, Why Should I Care welcomes guest speaker, Dr. Barbara J. …

All of us (well, most of us) love a good political contest. Especially during elections. Maybe we don´t welcome the election itself-especially if we feel like we just had one-but once it gets rolling, we´re sucked in. We´re treated to a solid month, sometimes more, of public spats, embarrassing revelations, and hopefully, some real debate.

Then it´s over. And most of us, except for the wonks, tune out.

Why is that? Are Canadians really so disengaged from the workings of Parliament itself-the day-to-day politics, during which policies …

Over the past few years Amnesty International has started asking some hard questions about the impact that some business practices have on Human Rights. Are Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) standards enough to prevent Human Rights violations? Is business altruism enough to make the world a better place? Do you think Canadian corporate initiatives abroad should have the same responsibility as they do domestically? Can foreign private investment be part of the solution to the development conundrum?

Canadian businesses are expanding across the globe, causing many to …

This Monday´s WSIC event provided a refreshing look at an issue that isn´t drying up: global water rights. (Those will be my first and last puns, I promise.) Like a lot of WSIC events, this one featured two guest speakers: Tara Seucharan and Michael Brothers, both members of the Council of Canadians.

Tara opened the discussion with a review of what the Council of Canadians has stood for since its founding in the mid-1980s. She emphasized the Council´s ferocity in protecting Canadian …

Commercialization of water is big business.

Though Canada controls much of the world’s accessible fresh water, and is blessed with one of the lowest municipal prices for water among industrialized countries, we still buy it from far away places like Fiji for as much as $6/litre.

Why? Because we often waste–or pollute–the water we’ve got here at home. Meanwhile, around the world, people struggle to gain access to the fresh water we take for granted. These two problems may be more closely connected than we’d like to admit.

Canada has …

When Mayor Ford and City Council clashed over transit issues, many Torontonians witnessed for the first time, a political standoff that has delayed many important decisions.  Toronto´s gridlock and congestion can´t afford a delay to action and many Torontonians are concerned about the future of this city.  The standoff prompted Toronto’s longest serving mayor, Senator Art Eggleton to write an op-ed in the Globe and Mail emphatically arguing that “this is no way to run a city”.

On May 28th, WSIC will welcome Senator Eggleton as …