Former Londoner Chris Clay, whose store Hemp Nation became a beachhead for a legal offensive to decriminalize marijuana, gets his last chance to overturn laws upheld by two lower courts at a hearing Dec. 13 before the Supreme Court of Canada, reports The London Free Press Dec. 12. The hearing will be heard days after Federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon said his government will likely take steps next year to decriminalize marijuana. “We’ve effectively changed public opinion in our favour,” said Alan Young, one of Clay’s lawyers and a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School.
Schulich sponsors public policy group for young
Canada25, a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to involving young Canadians in public policy debates, has released “Building Up: Making Canada’s Cities Magnets for Talent and Engines of Development,” reports Canada News Wire Dec. 11. The paper offers a vision of great Canadian cities as key magnets for attracting and retaining young talent. Founded in 2000 by six young Canadians with an interest in getting involved in public policy process outside of traditional partisan avenues, Canada25 has 800 members and is sponsored by corporations, government and educational institutions, including York’s Schulich School of Business.
Class is anything but “whitewashed”
In a letter to Now Magazine responding to Orville Lloyd Douglas’s article “Whitewashed Black Studies” (Nov. 28-Dec. 4), fellow student Brian A. Richards says: “It so happens that I take the exact same Urban Black America class, and regardless of the fact that our prof is of Jewish descent (not just simply white as Douglas says), the class is anything but “whitewashed”. The fact is, because the class is not taught by a black professor, I have the option of developing my own opinions as a black student without the all-too-familiar, leather-bound fist proclaiming black teachers and black schools for black students being shoved down my throat. The situation isn’t as Southern as Douglas depicts it. Unfortunately, progress takes time, and frankly, York University has made good use of it.”