Flooding, melting icecaps and wildfires are some of the effects of climate change that grab headlines. If you’re more interested in doing something about it than watching the news, several post-secondary schools in Ontario are now offering climate-change-focused courses and programs. Altaf Arain, director of McMaster University’s Centre for Climate Change, says that universities around the world are incorporating climate change across faculties, from master’s degrees to one-off continuing ed co

While Instagram can often show the glossy side of life—the beautiful vacations, the impeccable farm homes, and private jet life—it also offers the opportunity to gain knowledge about un-glossy, but important issues. As a Mohawk woman, I greatly respect the Indigenous women and men who put their daily lives on hold, endanger their physical and mental well-beings to protect the sacred dormant volcano of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, the water systems of Standing Rock Sioux reservation and lands surroundin

The Royal Ontario Museum’s iconic Nisga’a and Haida Crest totem poles have a new companion: a permanent mural created by the ROM’s Youth Cabinet that represents the Indigenous knowledge they’ve learned and pays tribute to a fallen warrior. In 2016, Kiowa Wind McComb helped form the youth cabinet. Then the Indigenous Youth Intern, the George Brown College student ran the cabinet alongside coordinator Leslie McCue, who also serves as the ROM’s Indigenous Knowledge Resource Teacher Jessie Jakumeit

If you follow Chief Lady Bird’s Instagram, which I highly recommend, you’ll find an amazing mix of erotic artwork and selfies of the tattooed and expertly eye-lined badass Indigenous artist. Her feed is dominated by her sexuality, which oozes into many facets of her life and her career. For example scenes from a photo shoot of Chief Lady Bird sensually eating pickerel and berries pop up later, turned into a mixed media illustration that was displayed at an art exhibition. I met up with her at

In high school, Christine Cutamora entered a co-op program that took her from shadowing housekeeping attendants in a downtown Toronto hotel to hunting down a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes for a guest. Originally, she wanted to go into the events field in post-secondary, but pivoted to hospitality and now works as a reservations agent at the Hazelton Hotel, making $21 an hour while attending George Brown College’s tourism and hospitality management program. “If it weren’t for the Be Our Gue

I recently had the pleasure of attending Lesley Hampton’s fashion show during Toronto Fashion Week and from start to finish, it was an amazing experience. A fashion show is an event, with an entire team of people working together to pull it off, from the music and lighting to the designer and the make up artists. I love the spectacle and the multitude of deliberate decisions that have gone into every stitch and step. The venue was a museum with soaring ceilings, that had swapped out its audien

FORGIVE ME as part of the program Perceptions at ImagineNative at TIFF Bell Lightbox (360 King West), Friday (October 25), 10:30 am. Free. imaginative.org. Chelsea Winstanley is “somewhere between Hamilton and Guelph” on the set of Danis Goulet’s first feature, Night Raiders. The Indigenous female-fronted sci-fi film is reminiscent of the projects the L.A.-based Maori producer/director has worked on like Merata Mita’s Saving Grace, Te Whakarauora Tangata and Waru, an anthology feature made by n

Welcome to Small Humans, an ongoing series at Mashable that looks at how to take care of – and deal with – the kids in your life. Because Dr. Spock is nice and all, but it’s 2019 and we have the entire internet to contend with. My five-year-old daughter began humming a traditional Alaska Native song, telling me “it’s so catchy! Do we have any Mohawk songs like this?” The reason she’d even heard a traditional Alaska Native song was through a new PBS animated children’s show, Molly of Denali. It

I live in a place that fully experiences every single season – the snowy winters, the sweltering heat of the summer, and the spring deluge of rain, and my heart has a special place for the cool fall days. The joy for me lies in the moments of preparation to step outside the front door and experience the autumnal weather. With winter, we’ve got layers – scarves and hats and gloves which will eventually go missing throughout the winter (this is a problem that I share with my pre-school aged chil

The annual report from Geena Davis Institute on Gender reveals that children’s television has achieved historic gender parity, but female and LGBTQ+ representation are still in need of improvement. The “See Jane 2019″ study analyzed representations of gender, race, LGBTQ+ and people with disabilities in popular entertainment media in 2018, and concluded that in children’s television, the number of female leads and co-leads rose to 52%, from 42%, over the past decade. The analysis also reveals t

My retirement dream has nothing to do with lounging on beaches or travelling around the world – it’s a film festival pass. As a retiree – hopefully with sufficient means – I imagine myself without responsibilities and a wide open schedule where I’m free to fill my schedule with countless movies. It’s my ideal way to spend my time because I love movies, popcorn, and being among people who also love movies and popcorn. While I’ve been to film festivals across Europe, the United States and Canada

I often think back to what my body could do when I was 24. At that point I was co-captain of the Canadian water polo team and training six hours a day. I was about 165 pounds of muscle and could bench-press almost my body weight. I didn’t have a six-pack—I had an eight-pack. My body changed drastically when, at age 34, I had the first of my three kids. With each one I’d gain some 70 pounds, even though I exercised up until two weeks before giving birth, doing spinning classes and weight- lifti

Following fellowship initiatives at Netflix and Sesame Street, Cartoon Network Studios has launched a mentorship program with Exceptional Minds, an LA-based non-profit for individuals on the autism spectrum that provides skills training in animation, post-production and visual effects. In the three-month long initiative, which launches today, the inaugural digital arts mentorship program links more than 20 Exceptional Minds students with an expert in fields from storyboarding to prop design at

Director Taika Waititi introduced his “anti-hate” comedy Jojo Rabbit to an adoring crowd at the Princess of Wales Theatre Sunday night (September 8) with the off-beat wisecrack that the movie "speaks for itself, unless you’re dumb.” The joke was indicative of the hugely anticipated film's zany humour. It's the latest from by New Zealand director and his first non-Marvel outing since his 2016 independent film Hunt For The Wilderpeople, which was a festival hit. Set against the backdrop of the r

Human Capital is a drama that aims high – tackling risk, desire and secrets, using a narrative device that splits the story into three chapters with new POVs – but it leaves too many threads and characters unexplored. Drew (Liev Schrieber) and his daughter Shannon (Maya Hawke) become entangled with the wealthy hedge fund couple Quint (Peter Sarsgaard) and Karen (Marisa Tomei), through investments and a mysterious hit-and-run. Schrieber, Hawke and Tomei do fine jobs with the character arcs they

ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF NOAH PIUGATTUK SPEC D: Zacharias Kunuk. Canada. 111 minutes. Sep 13, 6 pm, Winter Garden. Rating: Directed by Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner's Kunuk, One Day In The Life Of Noah Piugattuk illustrates Inuit-colonial relationships brilliantly. The film, spoken in Inuktitut and set in 1961 in Kapuivik, on Baffin Island, begins very slowly and wordlessly with a nomadic family’s morning tea. The momentum picks up when a hunting trip, led by the Elder Noah (Apayata Kotierk), is i

ONCE WERE BROTHERS: ROBBIE ROBERTSON AND THE BAND GALA D: Daniel Roher. Canada. 100 min. Sep 6, 3:15 pm, Scotiabank 13; Sep 14, 9:45 pm, Scotiabank 5. Rating: This documentary chronicles the origin story of Toronto-born musician Robbie Robertson and the formation of the seminal The Band, of which he was lead guitarist and songwriter. Ostensibly about the brotherhood of Robertson and his Band-mates, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel, the movie also gives time to Robertson’

ONCE WERE BROTHERS: ROBBIE ROBERTSON AND THE BAND GALA D: Daniel Roher. Canada. 100 min. Sep 5, 6 pm, Princess of Wales, 8 pm, Roy Thomson Hall; Sep 6, 3:15 pm, Scotiabank 13; Sep 14, 9:45 pm, Scotiabank 5. Robbie Robertson may be the only Rock and Roll Hall of Famer who keeps up to date on Indigenous issues by calling his relatives and the current and former chiefs of the Six Nations Reserve. According to current elected chief Ava Hill, they often speak on the phone about the revitalization o

At first I thought it was just a matter of functionality – I desperately wanted to have my hands free at an amusement park with my kids and nieces and nephews – and it spiralled into a search for a fanny pack. I upended my house looking for a version I swore I owned about 10 years ago, and my fruitless search led me to a debate between buying a cheap version for my fanny pack test-run, or an expensive version that would last me years. (I’m currently, and very happily, sporting my test-run versio

Obomsawin’s 53rd film continues her quest to tell urgent Indigenous stories, and this documentary is a clear-eyed telling of the origins and instating of Jordan’s Principle, a law that states Canada must provide the necessary services, products and support (such as medical equipment, speech therapy and mental health services) to all Indigenous children who need it. Jordan River Anderson, The Messenger delves into the people left behind when the federal and provincial government disagree over wh