Invitation to an honorary citizen

Prime Minister Harper has formally extended the invitation for Aung San Suu Kyi to visit Canada, seeing as she is an honorary citizen (though she’s unlikely to accept the invitation because if she were to leave Burma, she likely wouldn’t be allowed back in). And because Harper is so classy and wasn’t playing politics at all with this, he thanked Jack Layton for his constructive suggestion in extending the invitation.

The governor general, David Johnston, has said that there’s nothing wrong with coalitions, and that he will speak out if he feels the country is heading in the wrong direction, but in a “thoughtful and deliberate manner.”

The Globe and Mail finds it curious that three of the government watchdogs created by the Harper government have yet to find fault with the operation of government – whether it was a spectacularly bad appointment (public service integrity commissioner), one who interprets the rules so very narrowly that nothing seems to apply (conflict of interest and ethics commissioner), or a host of other reasons (lobbying commissioner).

Here’s a deeper look into those WikiLeaks that said that Jim Prentice was about to regulate the tar sands. Apparently parsing the language a little more suggests that he wasn’t necessarily, despite what certain media outlets reported.

And the Toronto Star gives us a glimpse of Conservative MP Bob Sopuck, a “right-wing environmentalist” who sounds more like a conservationist, and there is very much a difference.

Keep Reading

Job discrimination against trans and non-binary people is alive and well

OPINION: A study reveals that we have a long way to go to reach workplace equality for trans and non-binary people

The new generation of gay Conservative sellouts

OPINION: Melissa Lantsman’s and Eric Duncan’s refusals to call out their party’s transphobia is a betrayal of the LGBTQ2S+ community

Over 300 anti-LGBTQ2S+ bills have been introduced this year. This doesn’t mean we should panic

OPINION: While it’s important to watch out for threats, not all threats are created equally. Some of these bills will die a natural death

Xtra’s top LGBTQ2S+ stories of the year

The best and brightest—even most bewildering—stories from a back catalogue brimming with insight