On 22 October 2022, the Parkdale Legal Services held a symposium to commemorate its fifty-year anniversary. Osgoode students offered their time and energy to help plan and run the symposium. The “Parkdale Community Legal Services at 50: Defining Our Future” symposium brought together alumni, activists, lawyers, professors, community members, and current Osgoode students for a day of art...
Scientists discover genetic variation that offers largest evolutionary advantage found in humans A study published in Nature two weeks ago identified a genetic variation that gave certain people a 40% chance of surviving the Black Death—the largest evolutionary advantage found in humans. The Black Death, a plague that spread throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa ravaged the...
A congressional letter that urges President Biden to negotiate directly with Vladimir Putin to end the war against Ukraine, signed by thirty liberal democrats, was withdrawn by the Congressional Progressive Caucus on 25 October 2022. The House Democrats pointed out that the incrementally painful consequences are becoming increasingly far-reaching and are reflected not only in Ukraine but...
The Canadian housing market has been retreating due to increased interest rates over the past year. What was once a dominant sellers’ market has slowly become buyer-friendly as current homeowners cannot keep up with the rising interest rates. However, within this mayhem and the worrying housing price bubble, a niche area of housing financing is booming, particularly for a specific religious...
The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) has been making headlines this week following the announcement from French President Emmanuel Macron that his country would withdraw from the investment treaty because it did not align with the Paris Agreement. This follows announcements from Poland, Spain, and the Netherlands that they were pulling out of the agreement as well. The ECT is a multilateral investment...
On 7 September 2021, El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, made a huge announcement: They would become the first country to adopt bitcoin as a legal tender alongside their current currency, the US dollar. The government said this would be a great way to attract foreign investment, generate jobs, and reduce reliance on the US dollar. There are many benefits of having decentralized currency...
>tw: Violence and trauma connected to recent and ongoing conflict in Iran On 13 September 2022, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, a native of the Kurdish region in western Iran, was with her brother at a subway station in Tehran when she was stopped by the Iranian government’s morality police. She was accused of not complying with the state’s compulsory hijab laws. Amini’s brother was told she would be...
Are the current laws unconstitutional? Back in 2013, my Law and Morality professor had a sex worker speak to the class about the issues that she and her colleagues faced due to the sex worker laws that were in place at that time. Those next few weeks, our tutorials were discussions about the morality of being a sex worker, and a classmate asked something along the lines of, “Laborers sell their...
The Bank of Canada (“BoC”) has been aggressively increasing interest rates, with another anticipated rate hike on the way. When the pandemic first hit, the BoC responded by lowering the interest rates to stimulate economic activity. By lowering the interest rates, businesses and consumers benefited by having lower payments on their loans. The BoC prioritized making credit more readily available...
Every year, the biggest prizes in research are announced prior to the December 10 award ceremony commemorating the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. Alfred Nobel was an inventor, entrepreneur, scientist and businessman—most notably the inventor of dynamite—who also wrote poetry and drama. In his will, he established prizes in fields corresponding to his interests: physics, chemistry...
Can Europeans stay warm this winter without Nord Stream 1? Over the past few weeks, the staggering rate of inflation (which has been exacerbated by the energy crisis in Europe) has fuelled social unrest that has led to protests across the continent. Citizens are coming out in droves to protest the cost of living and to hopefully prompt their governments to act to ameliorate the situation before...
North Korea, the world’s most isolated, secretive, and ruthless communist regime, has passed a new law that not only declares itself as a nuclear state but effectively allows pre-emptive nuclear strikes. The brutal dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, resolutely announced that the nuclear status of his country was now “irreversible.” For decades since the end of the Korean War, North Korea...
If you live in Ontario, then undoubtedly you are aware of the issues that plague our health care system. When asked by a journalist about whether Doug Ford was looking into privatizing health care, he responded, “Everything is on the table.” He followed that up with a guarantee: “You will always be covered by OHIP, not the credit card.” Is he following through with that promise? One can argue...
Something appears to be in the rarified air that billionaires breathe. Last week, it was announced that Patagonia’s founder and former owner, Yvon Chouninard, and his family are giving away ownership of the outdoor apparel company, to donate any profit not reinvested in the business to fight climate change. This week, at an event held in Vancouver’s Stanley Park, we have our very own Canadian...
And may have saved billions of dollars in Alzheimer’s research funding Over the summer, a criminal investigation was opened against Cassava Sciences Inc., a Biotech company accused of fabricating pre-clinical data and clinical trial results. Their problems began in 2021 when two scientists, David Bredt and Geoffrey Pitt, noticed inconsistencies in the published data surrounding the billion-dollar...
A collective of concerned students lets their voices be heard on the matter of our return to campus Editor’s Note: This letter was drafted collectively by members of the Osgoode Hall Law Union, Disability Collective of Osgoode, and the Osgoode Mature Students Association. We are a collective of Osgoode Hall Law School students with significant concerns about York University and Osgoode’s...
In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently raised concern over Space Exploration Holdings, LLC’s (SpaceX) Starlink satellites, which hold the promise of providing low-latency, high-speed broadband internet across the globe. The American space agency highlighted their concerns over SpaceX’s mega-constellation...
There are a lot of things about the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics which are quite unique. The strict quarantine regime, the cozying up of Putin and Xi, the absence of foreign diplomats, and oh, the fact that none of the snow on the hills fell from the sky. All the snow that covers the ski and snowboarding venues at the Winter Olympics was made from water from reservoirs that supply about 400...
Launched on 19 January 2022, Altos Labs™ (Altos) has been hailed as a breakthrough biotechnology company seeking to transform the future of medicine through cellular rejuvenation programming. In the company’s press release, the biotech start-up described its mission as seeking to “restore cell health and resilience to reverse disease, injury, and the disabilities that can occur throughout...
On January 18, the oil giant Exxon released their net zero strategy that boasts impressive and highly ambitious commitments to reach a net zero carbon emissions target by 2050. The strategy identifies 150 modifications of its exploration and production practices to help the company reach its goal including electrification of operations with energy from renewable sources. Essentially, Exxon...
For Christmas Eve dinner in my household, by some minor miracle, I managed to hoodwink my family into letting me cook. I say hoodwink because my intentions behind the act were not necessarily pure. I do find cooking for my loved ones to be a way to show my affection and care for them when words fail me. However, the reason I did so was to make an all plant-based (smeared labneh on some sprouts to...
—This article is part of a three-part series diving into the world of Cryptocurrency— Blockchain. Cryptocurrency. NFTs. What do the three of these have in common? Yes, that is right! They are things your distant uncle tried to passionately explain over a holiday dinner. They are buzzwords. Honestly, it can also be true that they may even make your eyes glaze over with how plastered around the...
On 3 January 2022, following several days of jury deliberation, the founder of Theranos was found guilty on four counts of fraud. The final decision concluded a high-profile trial involving a now-dissolved blood testing start-up. Theranos Inc., founded by then nineteen-year-old Elizabeth Holmes in 2003, was a health care tech start-up for consumers, once valued at ten billion USD and poised to...
The six thousand and two hundred kilogram, six and a half meter wide successor to the thirty-one year old Hubble space observatory, also known as the James Webb Space Telescope, launched on 25 December 2021. This tennis court-size, honey-comb shaped, sun coloured telescope is an engineering feat where the apparatus had to unfold itself in space. James Webb’s creation from its design to execution...
There has been intense scrutiny of fossil fuel corporations due to their emissions intensive activities, but I propose stepping back and widening the sphere of responsibility to get to the root of the problem and turn our attention to who is enabling these practices. Financial markets play a central role in the climate crisis, and they should not be absolved of liability because they are indirect...