Will Canada’s Syria mission bolster Assad’s regime?

March 27, 2015 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News

The federal Conservatives have extended Canada’s anti-ISIS campaign to include airstrikes on Syria. This is necessary, Prime Minister Stephen Harper says, because the group “must cease to have any safe haven in Syria.”

But in doing so, Canada may be helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has, evidence indicates, cluster-bombed and gassed his own civilians, contributed to a massive humanitarian crisis and killed hundreds of thousands of people – far more than the so-called Islamic StateCanada has vowed to defeat.

Continue reading

‘Canadian families are tapped out’: Tories out of touch with economy, opposition says

February 19, 2015 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News

Canadians are struggling in today’s economy far more than the federal Conservatives realize, NDP and Liberal opposition critics say.

They point to analysis in a Global News series on Canada’s financial instability trapas proof the post-recession recovery is, for many families, an unfulfilled promise.

Continue reading

Opposition calls for action on Ontario opioid deaths

November 13, 2014 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News

Ontario needs to rethink the way it treats addiction and pain if it wants to tackle a worsening prescription opioid health crisis, critics say.

Preliminary figures obtained by Global News indicate opioids are killing more Ontarians than ever before – and the province has no plan to shift away from its one-drug crackdown even as the opioid crisis shifts to such less-notorious drugs as Fentanyl and Hydromorph Contin.

Continue reading