Photo by Jordan Murray, @lovelyliterary

Jordan Murray’s perfectly manicured hand displays an annotated title page of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. “From the library of Jordan Murray” is stamped in the centre; just below she’s written, “the cost of pride, love & marriage, social status.” And all around are illustrations of tiny flowers, hearts and envelopes along with a drawing of the famous 18th century English novelist. A multitude of coloured tabs peek out from the novel’s pages.

Murray’s @lovelyliterary Instagram page is an ode to the modern aesthetics of online book lovers. Murray, a 23-year-old University of Windsor student, is an avid book annotator and part of the boom of young adults passionate about reading.

According to a survey by BookNet Canada, a non-profit that collects and analyzes data about the Canadian book industry, half of those surveyed in the 18 to 29 age group preferred books in print. The medium is optimal for recording thoughts, reactions, and feelings in annotated form, and the phenomenon has spread. Practitioners share the art and joy of book annotation on book blogs, Pinterest, Instagram and BookTok, a TikTok subcommunity. Novices seek advice and tips on Reddit and Goodreads. Online retailers like Etsy and Amazon advertize purpose-made book annotation supplies.

OK, Boomer: this isn’t your version of annotating with pencil in hand, making surreptitious notes in margins. Millennials and Gen Zers go all out. They underline, circle and highlight pages. They generously apply different coloured tabs and stickers. “I’m swooning” moments, memorable quotes, relatable themes and spicy scenes are marked. Some annotators have colour coding systems—pink tabs to represent cute scenes, green for standout paragraphs. They also create legends or tables of content for easy reference. The more aesthetically inclined will match the colours of their tabs to their book covers. When it comes to supplies, tools of the trade include pens, scissors, tweezers, rulers, stickers, coloured tabs and highlighters.

“On a more surface level, it’s treated like an art form,” says Murray. “Sometimes it’s idealized for the aesthetics.”

But while these book enthusiasts use their online platforms to spread the word about their art and share with others, creating a hybrid medium of sorts, they also say the hobby offers a much-needed reprieve from the digitization of their lives. “It’s a form of self care, to really connect with my books and disconnect from the world,” says 36-year-old Alexandra Kelebay, a Montrealer and book columnist for CBC/Radio Canada who posts on Instagram @thebookishglow. “It is also a very creative process for some, which is another fascinating way to approach it; people quite literally transform their books into art objects this way, which is a wonderful antidote to our highly digital, online existence.”

This is something Danielle Fuller has observed in her research. The University of Alberta professor of English and film studies is interested in how Gen Z are drawn to analogue media even while they might choose to display their material practices, such as annotation, via digital technology. “Since [Gen Z] grew up with technology, they don’t want to be on screens all the time. Some of their motivations for choosing a print book is to get off screens and that networked environment.”

Equally important is the hands-on approach book annotation affords them. “It makes the experience come alive—it’s physical, tactile, and a kind of tangible way of experiencing a book,” says Kelebay. “When people especially connect with characters or themes in a book, it can be transformative, so annotating concretizes an experience that would otherwise remain abstract.”

Annotation also provides an opportunity to internalize away from a wired world focused on constant social interaction and stimulation.

“For me, annotating has always been something very personal, so to share this with someone would feel very open and vulnerable, almost like peeking into my journal,” says Kelebay. “It’s where I highlight meaningful lines, passages, and quotes, as well as scribble thoughts in the margins as I read. For me it’s a solitary, meditative experience.”

There’s another motivating factor. A few generations ago, books, reading, and annotation were the domain of geeks and scholars. Academics meticulously pored over classic literature and recorded their thoughts. This came with the implicit understanding that only centuries-old tomes by long-dead authors were worthy of annotation—a concept the new generation of book lovers rejects.

Murray started annotating for her Grade 9 English class unit on Shakespeare. But she says she now annotates whatever she’s enjoying – from a Sally Rooney novel to a horror-thriller. “Annotating has made the practice of reading more accessible and enjoyable. It isn’t just for Tolstoy or Austen anymore; it could also be for romance books with cute moments or thrillers with shocking reveals.”

These days, the practice is for everyone. “It leans into the idea that geekiness is now kind of cool,” says Fuller. And that geekiness is viral and massively influential among young adults. A 2024 Statista survey revealed 37 percent of TikTok users in Canada are Gen Z, with BookTok amassing 45.7 million posts. Then there’s BookTube, an online literary community where 90 percent of users are aged 18-24. At the same time, viral book clubs are helmed by the young, rich and famous: there’s Belletrist from Emma Roberts, and model Kaia Gerber’s Library Science. With this kind of star power, it’s no wonder book lovers are happy to share their love for the written word. And annotation is just one way to both publicly and privately display that feeling.

It’s a feeling shared by Ryan Jones, though she takes a digital approach. “I’m 26-years-old, but I’m definitely an old soul at heart,” says the writer and marketing specialist in Waterloo, Ontario. “I like to keep the integrity of the physical book as it is.”

Jones annotates her e-book versions of novels and makes notes on her phone about the writing, characters, and plot. “I do like to highlight things that make me feel so deeply.” And deep feelings about books show no signs of waning, thanks to this passionate generation of young readers.

Illustration by Nick Craine

For the past three years urban gardener and author (City Farmer: Adventures in Urban Food Growing) Lorraine Johnson has kept chickens in her Toronto west-end backyard. As Toronto considers ending its current ban on urban fowl, Johnson, 51, serves up her reasons for overturning the bylaw.

THIS: What inspired you to get chickens?

LJ: I had been visiting my sister in Australia and I encountered a lot of people in the city who had chickens. It seemed normal. Nobody commented on it. It occurred to me that I wanted chickens too, for the eggs. The fact it was illegal in Toronto seemed (she pauses for a moment) surmountable.

THIS: Where did you get them?

LJ: I got three from a farmer outside the city. She has Heritage breeds, which means they aren’t raised commercially very much. It’s small-scale, usually organic folks, who are keeping these breeds going.

THIS: What do they cost?

LJ: I have a feeling—and I’m not referring to my farmer friend—that a lot of farmers who live in the country are sort of scratching their heads at the ridiculous amount of money urban chicken keepers are willing to pay. Because you can go to a farm coop or auction and get a chick for 10 or 25 cents. I paid $10 to $25 [each] for Heritage hens that were just at the point of laying eggs.

THIS: How many eggs do they lay?

LJ: From three chickens I get roughly 18 eggs a week. That kind of production is when the hens are in their prime. It’s pretty well that much from spring to fall. The production lowers in response to light levels. Some people put lights in their coops but I don’t.

THIS: What do the eggs taste like?

LJ: It’s hard to describe. Because the chickens are eating worms and lots of greenery and are running around, their yolks are a brilliant, brilliant orange and the whites are firmer. For me, it’s also that I know I’m getting the freshest, most
delicious, organic eggs that are humanely raised. These chickens have a great life. I have no kind of doubts about their happiness.

THIS: Are they outside 24/7?

LJ: Yeah, in something called an eglu. It’s made by a UK-based company called Omlet. There are so many bad puns in the chicken world; it’s so tempting.

THIS: The eglus are not cheap.

LJ: It cost me about $600 plus $80 duty when I brought it into Canada from Buffalo, where I had picked it up. Again, I think it makes any farmers living in the country shake their heads. They would just build one themselves.

THIS: The hens are OK in the winter?

LJ: It’s not a problem. I put bubble wrap around the coop and bought a reptile light for inside but I never even had to use it.

THIS: How do your neighbours react?

LJ: I’m lucky in that the two places I’ve lived I’ve had great neighbours who love the eggs.

THIS: So you bribe them.

LJ: Totally.

THIS: But you have been busted.

LJ: It’s quite ironic because it was the day I was moving [about a year and a half ago, to my present address]. I wasn’t ratted out, which is how most bylaw infractions are triggered. No one complained. It was likely because a chapter in my book dealing with chickens had been excerpted in The Star, and there was an article about me and a picture of the chickens in the Globe. So I think it was someone within enforcement saying I’ve been too brazen about it.

THIS: What happened?

LJ: I was given 30 days to get them out of the city. I was going away for a while soon after I moved so let’s just say they went on a vacation and when I came back I got more chickens.

THIS: Why is it illegal in Toronto? It’s not in many other places.

LJ: It’s not in Brampton, Niagara Falls, Vancouver. Or in almost any major US city. I think it goes back to the ’80s when there were concerns about the health of chickens in Kensington Market. To deal with the problem the city just banned all of them.

THIS: But that might change?

LJ: Yes. There’s a motion going before the Licensing and Standards Committee that, if passed, would have city staff write a report on how Toronto could accommodate backyard chickens. If that report is written then it would likely go before council for debate.

THIS: What if the bylaw isn’t changed?

LJ: That would be sad and tragic. A group of us are working to make sure that doesn’t happen. We’ve invited politicians and bureaucrats to come and visit us to see what it’s like for themselves. So far I’ve had senior public health and animal services people come and I’ve met with four politicians.

THIS: The concern, I guess, is noise, smell, things like that.

LJ: But they are misconceptions! They’re quieter than dogs. You don’t need a rooster, so that problem isn’t there. And, yes, if you have 5,000 chickens in a commercial building it will smell. But not three or four in your yard. The feces decompose quickly. And as long as you take care of the coop, as you need to take care of any pet, there’s no problem with smell at all.

THIS: Will you continue to have chickens no matter what?

LJ: Yes.

THIS: You’ll be a scofflaw?

LJ: Yes, me and many, many others, from all walks of life and backgrounds and motivations [for having chickens]. There is no stereotypical person.

THIS: How many of you are there?

LJ: No one is able to estimate accurately because it’s such a hidden activity. But you don’t have to scratch very deep to find a chicken in the city.

In January 2012, Toronto’s Licensing and Standards Committee voted to indefinitely defer the motion to commission a report on the feasibility of legalizing backyard chickens.

Four of the country’s 16 medical schools admitted to accepting research-targeted grants between 1996 and 1999, and three said they accepted donations, which are not tied to specific research projects. The average grant was for more than $160,000, while the average donation came in at $18,000. “It’s not surprising that the tobacco industry gives money to medical schools,” says Joanna Cohen, the study’s principal researcher. “I am disappointed that the medical schools would actually take the money.”

The figures might actually be much higher considering five medical schools refused to disclose financial information.

Cohen can’t name the schools that admitted to accepting the cash because researchers promised respondents they would remain anonymous. “Anonymity is a common research practice as far as individuals are concerned, so we decided to extend this to the universities, to take all precautions to get the best results.”

None of the schools that participated in the study has a policy preventing it from accepting money from the tobacco industry. Cynthia Callard, executive director of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, says that’s a huge problem and something medical schools have to change soon. “It was a little bit of a hidden issue,” says Callard. “But now it’s been brought to light and something should be done about it.”

In Australia, 70 percent of medical faculties have policies against accepting tobacco funds. Unfortunately, things do not seem to be moving very quickly here in Canada. Audrey Cheung, director of research grants at U of T, says the school has no policy regarding the acceptance of tobacco funding, nor does the university plan on adopting a ban. “I’m not aware of any move in that direction,” she says, “either at the university or at the faculty level.”

It’s true in some circles that taking an active interest in one’s finances is considered anathema to being truly left-leaning, that it’s a distasteful, bourgeois hobby. And if you’re making millions off investments in tobacco companies and weapons manufacturers, it probably is. But that isn’t always the case. The flipside of that argument is that taking control of one’s finances is the ultimate expression of self-determination.

Learning about personal finance should be of most interest to those who don’t have much of it—and in that category we can safely include the many people who work for low-paying NGOs, non-profits and charities. After all, do you think Belinda Stronach reads personal finance magazines? Hardly—she can pay someone to manage her money for her, whereas the rest of us need to learn to do it ourselves.

It’s easy to understand why many lefties find personal finance literature so odious, as much of it is written with the same underlying conservative philosophy—that you need to master your finances in order to pay the least amount of tax possible. Most lefties naturally, and rightfully, disagree with such a position. As supporters of a social welfare state, we realize that if we didn’t pay taxes there would be no such thing as universal health care.

My take is a little different: I think you should bone up on personal finance in order to pay the least amount of money possible to the multinational corporations that control your life. According to the latest information from Statistics Canada, the average Canadian family carries a rather astounding $12,300 in credit card and “other” debts, to say nothing of what we owe on mortgages ($82,800), student loans ($10,400), lines of credit ($13,500) and car loans ($11,200). That means big bucks in interest payments for banks and credit card companies. But why are so many of us giving them more money than we have to?

What’s your interest in keeping the big banks profitable, the same ones that shutter small-town branches they deem not profitable enough and charge increasingly higher service fees for fewer services? Or what about credit card companies that charge interest rates that are more than 15 percent higher than the Bank of Canada’s prime lending rate and insist on giving consumers more credit to spend than they can ever hope to pay off? Surely if the money you shell out in unnecessary interest payments stayed in your hands, you could find better ways to spend it than bolstering the bottom line of these multinational money-making machines.

The same thinking applies to investing. Yes, most of the literature you’ll find is couched in terms of making RRSP contributions as a way to reduce your so-called tax burden. But try to look past that. Because if you don’t learn how to invest properly, and simply pour money into an ethical fund, you may end up more philosophically compromised than if you’d just bought a regular mutual fund. The fund manager’s idea of what is ethical may be quite different from yours. If you don’t learn what to look for, you won’t know what your money supports.

Last year, Bill C-24 placed new spending limits on nomination races and new reporting requirements on donations. It also introduced new limits on donations, including a ban on corporate donations to parties, a $1,000 limit on corporate donations to candidates and a $5,000 limit on individuals donating to parties or candidates. But donors are still finding ways to get around the rules.

Re-elected Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish, for example, was offered a cheque for $5,000 from a company in her riding. Knowing this was above the $1,000 limit for businesses, she politely returned the cheque. But almost immediately after she did so, three new $1,000 cheques came in: one from the company that wrote the first cheque, one from the owner of the company and one from another company the owner was involved in. A few weeks later, she got a $2,000 cheque from the owner’s brother. “The first guy would have liked to have given me $5,000, but he couldn’t,” she says.

In the Ottawa Centre race, Liberal Richard Mahoney’s campaign called voters on election day—when campaigning is illegal—leaving an automated message propagating a false rumour that his main opponent, the NDP’s Ed Broadbent, was willing to give up his seat if Jack Layton lost his own election and needed somewhere to run. “The people of Ottawa Centre can elect someone who’s committed for the long term, Richard Mahoney, and prevent Stephen Harper from becoming prime minister,” the message urged.

Mahoney lost by a wide margin, but the incident illustrates how election laws are failing to deal with desperate candidates who pull out the dirty tricks in the dying days of a campaign, confident in the knowledge that an Elections Canada investigation will not be able to stop them until after the election, when the damage is done. Nobody knows when the next election will be, but with any luck, MPs will address ways to prevent these shenanigans before another writ is dropped.

It is because of cases like this that a group of activists is lobbying Toronto council to adopt a policy that would prevent city workers, including police, from inquiring about the immigration status of people seeking services. It would also prevent them from passing on information about immigration status to any federal or provincial agency. “We felt it was essential for a lot of people we were working with to be able to access services without fear,” says Sima Zerehi, a campaign organizer with No One Is Illegal.

Zerehi says the idea came about in 2003, after organizers heard of a similar policy in New York City and began to realize how many of the non-status people they worked with in immigration detention centres had ended up there as a result of trying to access city services. Non-status persons, sometimes called illegal immigrants, are people who entered the country legally but lost their right to remain here, either because their refugee claim was denied or they overstayed a tourist visa. Until they are ordered deported or granted status, they are stuck in a legal limbo, with no official immigration status. And with an estimated 20,000 to 200,000 non-status persons living in Canada—half of those in the Toronto area—Zerehi says it’s imperative the city make it easier for them to access essential services without fear of being reported to immigration authorities.

Campaign organizers say non-status persons are entitled to services because the Canadian economy benefits from their labour. “Communities without status do contribute in a positive way to our economy. There really isn’t any reason why they shouldn’t be offered adequate services,” says Zerehi.

Police routinely ask about immigration status when investigating unrelated matters, such as domestic violence complaints. “If, through the normal course of an investigation, we find people with various immigration statuses, obviously we communicate that to Immigration Canada,” says Sergeant Jim Muscat of the Toronto Police Service.

That’s precisely the kind of situation organizers would like to change. But they realize that even having a policy might not make a difference immediately. For example, schools in Ontario are required to admit children whose parents are “unlawfully in Canada.” Yet, according to Martha Mackinnon, executive director of the Justice for Children and Youth Legal Clinic, about 100 children were denied access to Toronto schools this past year, even though the school board has a policy of admitting non-status children. “We took action, and to our knowledge, everyone was admitted,” she says. “Unfortunately, I think that we need more work on the implementation of the policy, especially at a local school level,” concedes school board trustee Bruce Davis.

With the campaign still in its early days, organizers are hopeful. Mayor David Miller supports the principle that all city residents should have access to city services: “The general policy in our administration is that, unless legally obliged, city workers do not ask about immigration status.” But despite his tacit endorsement and the fact that a variety of community organizations and three city councillors have come on board, the city’s official position is that non-status persons already have access to some services, such as public health nurses and homeless shelters, and that the city is prevented by provincial legislation from providing other services, such as social housing. Under the Social Housing Reform Act, for example, every person in the household must have legal status in order for the entire family to be placed on the waiting list.

Organizers say their next step is to hold a public forum this fall. The sooner council addresses the issue, the better, says Cindy Cowan, executive director of the women’s shelter Nellie’s, who sees first-hand what happens when women at risk are afraid to call the police and why a policy is necessary. “It would reduce the fear,” she says, “and enable women to get the support and services they need.”

Clearly, it was not what Martin had hoped for. But for the rest of us, it might not be a bad thing. Although Canada has seen its share of difficulties with minority governments (think of Joe Clark’s short-lived Tory government in 1979), a lot of progressive legislation has come out of a centrist government forced to lean on the left for a little support.

Below, we’ve compared the legacies of Lester B. Pearson’s minority government, which sat for two terms from 1963 to 1968, with Jean Chrétien’s majority reign of power from 1993 to 2003.

Education Pearson created the Canada Student Loans Program in 1964 to make post-secondary education possible for lower-income families, providing eligible students with low-interest loans.

Chrétien cut $4 billion from federal funding for social services, including education. Thanks to Chrétien’s changes, the National Student Loan Service Centre, banks and even the government itself will now report delinquent grads to private debt collectors and take legal action if they default on their loans.

Medicare Pearson introduced universal medicare in 1968, due in no small part to the urging of Tommy Douglas and the New Democratic Party.

Chrétien was soft on two-tier health care, allowing private MRI, CT, orthopedic and ophthalmology clinics to grow across Canada.

Military Pearson resisted US pressure to participate in the Vietnam War and spoke out against the bombing campaign, angering then-president Lyndon Johnson.

Chrétien ordered troops to join the coalition to fight in Afghanistan immediately after September 11. Operation Apollo brought soldiers, patrols, frigates and other military equipment to the war against terrorism in the Middle East.

One way the region could help divert more waste is by insisting that its commercial and industrial taxpayers start recycling, just as residents have done for years. After all, it’s the out-of-town visitors, and the businesses that cater to them, that are creating the garbage problem. Fewer than three percent of hotels offer recycling bins to their guests and you’d be hard-pressed to find a single bin in busy tourist districts or parks. One of the main reasons for this is that while residents pay for recycling pick-up as part of their municipal taxes, most businesses do not and must pay out of pocket for the service. “We don’t really recycle at all, and I don’t have time for this,” says Frank Taylor, general manager of the Best Western Fallsview, echoing the sentiments of many business owners when asked about their recycling habits.

Whether they wish to or not, all Ontario businesses have been legally obliged to recycle since 1994. But without any follow-through from the proper authorities, it’s been left up to businesses to decide whether to bother. “The Ministry of the Environment is simply not enforcing the regulation because, right now, it doesn’t see it as a priority,” says David McRobert, senior legal counsel to the province’s environmental commissioner.

“We are aware that this is an issue that isn’t being addressed, and we need to have a look at enforcing the recycling regulations,” says Arthur Chamberlain, a spokesperson for Ontario’s minister of the environment. He says the ministry is looking into the possibility of conducting recycling audits of businesses to make them more accountable.

But when that will happen is anyone’s guess. And the outcome may be too late to make a difference. “This is happening all over the place, not just in Niagara Falls. I think we have squeezed all the recycling we can out of city residents,” says Gord Perks of the Toronto Environmental Alliance, who is well aware of the one-sided recycling situation. “It’s time to make the big guys do it. Without big change now, everyone is going to suffer in the long run.”

When Canadians read or heard disclosures about how Nike footwear was being produced in Vietnamese sweatshops by people who work for next to nothing in appalling conditions and at an inhuman pace, we were outraged enough to join an international clamour to force the company to deal only with responsible and ethical contractors.

And when news reports reached Canada about how Wal-Mart sourced much of its cheap merchandise from China, where it is often produced under even worse conditions than Nike footwear used to be in Vietnam, we also demanded that the world’s largest retailer be more scrupulous in choosing suppliers.

But go to any newsstand in Canada and choose a Canadian magazine at random, and chances are excellent that you will have fresh evidence of a cynical, widespread scheme to apply the methods of the sweatshop to young, vulnerable people who are so desperate to join the ranks of the employed that they will actually compete with one another for the opportunity to work for free.

What’s especially repugnant about this to me, a journalist, is that magazines, which should be exposing such ugly, shoddy practices, are gleefully embracing unpaid internships to cut costs and increase profits, and are proud of it.

Lynn Cunningham, a professor of journalism at Ryerson University who has tracked the spread of unpaid internships since the early 1990s, says that most magazines across Canada have such programs, and that not paying people to work has spread to broadcasting and to some community newspapers which do not have labour unions and collective agreements.

These unpaid arrangements began in magazines in the United States during the last recession and, like a plague (think of it as “Cash Cow Disease”), soon spread to Canada. In no time, some of the most successful magazines in Canada, including Toronto Life, Saturday Night, Flare, Vancouver and many others were generously offering to let young, unemployed would-be journalists hang out, fetch coffee, check facts, suck up to editors and, if they were very, very lucky, maybe even write a story or two which would be published under their byline.

(Many small magazines, like this one, offer unpaid internships not to generate large profits, but because they genuinely have no money. Such magazines are often a labour of love, and many have no paid staff at all.)

It’s probably not surprising that other magazine departments have been inspired to emulate some of Canada’s most celebrated editors. Cunningham observes that at some places, it’s now possible for the truly gullible or desperate to serve as unpaid “circulation interns.”

I think we condone the sleazy practices of large magazines in the mistaken belief that they are, at worst, akin to being victimless crimes (hey, it’s kids from affluent families who are willingly working for free, after all).

But that, of course, means that less affluent kids are more at risk than ever of being squeezed entirely out of a vast and important segment of our mass media.

Cunningham also notes that by embracing unpaid internships, editors are training publishers “to believe that editorial people will work for free.” It’s a notion that many publishers are all too willing to believe, and to act upon.

I don’t think you, the reader, should have to put up with this. Magazines, remember, are extraordinarily sensitive and vulnerable to pressure, properly applied.

Let me suggest that you make inquiries immediately about whether magazines you read employ unpaid interns. If they do, make note of advertisers in these magazines and inform the advertisers that you intend to boycott their products if they insist on doing business with publishers who engage in practices that would not be condoned, even in most parts of the Third World.

And find out whether your favourite magazines are receiving money from the federal slush fund supposedly set up to help publishers weather the onslaught of competition from the south, which never happened. Write to the feds, and demand that they withdraw such support from any magazines that don’t pay their people.

Finally, get in touch with the editors and publishers themselves. I doubt that it would make a damn bit of difference, but it’s the right thing to do.

Vespa Nation

La dolce Vespa, icon of chic Euro-style and Mod subculture, has motored back to Canada after an 18-year absence. The federal government banned the stylish scooter in 1986 because Piaggio, its Italian manufacturer, failed to meet toughening emission regulations. Its reappearance this past May was due to the diligent pestering of Piaggio by Morey Chaplick, president of the Toronto-based Canadian Scooter Corp.

Chaplick persuaded the innovators of Italian transport that there is a market for Vespas in Canada—our burgeoning urban areas are already home to thousands of devotees of vintage Vespas. And the machines themselves have come a long way. The new line includes a much more environmentally sound four-stroke-engine model, and even the two-stroke-engine model now complies with California emission standards, the toughest in North America.

Piaggio began manufacturing Vespas in 1946 to provide sturdy, inexpensive mobility to Italians on war-ravaged roads in a post-WWII economy. The Vespa has remained popular in Europe due to soaring gas prices, narrow streets and traffic congestion that have made the freedom of the compact, wasp-like scooter a common alternative on arrondissements, stradas and caminos. The Vespa ET4 costs around $5,400 and carries a 150cc four-stoke engine, while the ET2 costs closer to $4,000 and has a 50cc two-stroke engine.

Gridlock: The nimble Vespa measures a slight 1.7 metres in length and a little over half a metre in width. The average city parking space, measuring six metres in length and 2.7 metres in width, can accommodate about 10 Vespas. And you could fit 86 Vespas into the 25 parking spaces that line the length of the average city block on each side.

Fuel Efficiency: If Vespas made up 15 percent of vehicles on Canadian roads, and they were driven 15 kilometres a day, drivers would save more than 91 million litres of gas each month. The average four-door passenger vehicle uses anywhere from 7.89 litres per 100 kilometres to 17.20 litres per kilometre, while the Vespa ET2 uses 3.6 and the Vespa ET4 uses 5.6.

Pocket Change: With today’s gas prices hovering around 90 cents a litre, it costs about $8 to fill the nine-litre Vespa tank. Driving 15 kilometres a day at 90 cents a litre would cost 62 cents a day. If you were willing to bundle up and ride your Vespa nine months out of the year (taking a break for only the three worst winter months), you’d spend a total of $156.24 on gas. Insurance: For the average cost of insuring one car for a year you could insure six Vespas. In major urban areas, insurance rates range from $1,400 to $2,800 per year for a car. Vespas, considered less hazardous on the roads, can be insured for a mere $300 to $400 a year. By Jackie Wallace

Unread Menace
Though some call us a Communist publication, apparently This Magazine is not Communist enough for the Chinese government, according to a 2002 study by a pair of Harvard Law School researchers. Try to look up www.thismagazine.ca in China, and all you’ll see is an error page. Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman tested 200,000 websites and found that 50,000 offering information about politics, education, health and entertainment—as well as some 3,000 sites from Taiwan—were inaccessible on proxy servers in China because of longstanding policies of the ruling Communist Party. For a complete list of blocked sites, check out cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/ By Jenn Hardy

Split On Svend-Gate
When Svend Robinson revealed in April that he had pocketed a pricey antique diamond ring, conservatives were gleeful with schadenfreude, and progressives scratched their heads and wondered what had possessed their fallen hero. Even the experts seem divided about Svend-gate, with opinions almost as polar as Stephen Harper’s and Jack Layton’s.

“There are a lot of different ways to snap, and shoplifting is quite a common one in my experience,” explains therapist and recovered shoplifter Terry Shulman, who runs www.shopliftersanonymous.com. It’s not just a way to get free stuff. Those who shoplift for psychological reasons, he points out, often discard the stolen items soon after the deed is done. “With politicians, it’s hard to say whether it’s pure ego, or if they feel over-extended,” Shulman says. “Politicians are for helping people, that’s their job. That’s really an awesome responsibility, and their own needs may become sublimated.” He explains that many people, including him, have shoplifted as a way to compensate for feeling that they have sacrificed or over-extended themselves.

Toronto psychiatrist Dr. Mark Berber rejects this theory as applied to politicians. “Politicians are very well-supported—they have large staffs and lots of holidays,” he says. “I think sometimes celebrities and politicians may think that at some level they are above the law.” Shulman and Berber also have differing perspectives on Robinson’s case in particular. “When he said ‘I’ve failed,’ that tells me that he was putting a lot of pressure on himself to have this perfect image,” Shulman says. Berber takes a less sympathetic view, emphasizing the importance of knowing the sequence of events in Robinson’s case. “It’s been reported that he was looking at rings beforehand, and if that’s the case this becomes more complex, more pre-meditated,” he says.

Shulman sees the antique ring in question as symbolic. He says the ring represents commitment issues, and antiques represent a longing for times of old. Berber laughs when asked if he reads anything into the ring. “Let’s not get into Freudian issues now.” By Annette Bourdeau

Martin Bucks Wheat Agreement
The potential conflicts of interest involving Paul Martin’s ties to Canada Steamship Lines (CSL) are unlikely to go away soon. Martin owned the private company throughout his tenure as finance minister, keeping it in a blind trust while nonetheless getting briefed on the company’s affairs. During the debate over the Kyoto Protocol to address global climate change, many speculated that Martin’s ties to CSL, which is a major shipper of coal, was the root cause of his wavering support for the agreement.

CSL’s grain shipping business may also be a factor in Canada’s failure to ratify the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. The protocol, finalized at a 2000 conference in Montreal, aims to protect against the risks posed by importing genetically engineered (GE) organisms. Once released into the environment, GE organisms can become a permanent fixture, contaminating domestic plant species. Canada signed the Biosafety Protocol in 2001, and the agreement came into force last September. Ninety countries, including Mexico, Japan and all members of the European Union, have ratified it. Even China has stated that it will ratify in the near future. Yet Canada is still dithering.

The biotech industry, worried about provisions in the accord requiring imports of GE products to be labelled as such, has aggressively lobbied against ratification. Pro
-biotech bureaucrats have put forward an ever-changing list of reasons for Canada’s failure to sign on. The latest justification, according to top officials on the file from various departments, is the effects the agreement will have on the grain shipping industry. And one of Canada’s top grain shippers is CSL.

In a September 2003, memo obtained under access to information, Stephen Yarrow, a director at the Canada Food Inspection Agency, stated that bureaucrats are still examining the pros and cons of ratification. “Specifically, this analysis is focussing on the potential impacts on the Canadian grain handling and shipping industries.” At parliamentary hearings this past March, lead bureaucrats from Agriculture Canada and Environment Canada confirmed that shipping industry concerns are the “principle point” hampering Canada’s ratification.

There is no direct evidence that Martin intervened to discourage Canada’s ratification of the protocol. However, his ties to CSL are widely known within government, and many bureaucrats, who already have a cozy relationship with biotech companies that are against the agreement, may be raising the shipping concern as a way of cowing others within government who support ratification.

As a result, so long as shipping concerns remain the primary justification for failing to ratify the Biosafety Protocol, Martin’s ties to that industry may cause some to question why Canada is opting out of a widely supported international agreement. Ottawa Report: By Aaron Freeman