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Anyone with children in day care knows the costs can eat into the family budget. A key campaign promise of Ontario’s ruling Liberal government is that it will provide free child care for pre-schoolers if it’s re-elected in this spring’s vote. Today in The Conversation Canada, economist Gordon Cleveland of the University of Toronto makes the case “why free preschool really does make the most economic and social sense.”
Much has been written about the terrible tragedy of plastics pollution in our oceans, but Kennedy Bucci and Chelsea Rochman of the University of Toronto report that Canadian rivers, lakes and streams are also being contaminated by microplastic debris.
May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day, will soon be here and Kendra Strauss of Simon Fraser University looks back at the key labour issues of the last year – with increases in the minimum wage being front and centre.
And finally…there’s another “day” coming up this weekend. International Tabletop Day celebrates the culture of board games. Benjamin Hoy of the University of Saskatchewan studies the history of tabletop games and writes about how images of Indigenous people in games over the years have “contributed to the ways that stereotypes are passed between generations.”
Regards,
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Making preschool free will dramatically improve affordability for families across Ontario, Canada, and lead to a predicted increase of 40,000 parents in full-time employment.
(Shutterstock)
Gordon Cleveland, University of Toronto
It is vital that Ontario's child-care reforms reach all families, and that the province learns from mistakes made in Quebec.
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Researchers are finding plastics in fish in freshwater ecosystems.
(Shutterstock)
Kennedy Bucci, University of Toronto; Chelsea Rochman, University of Toronto
Ocean plastic has gained notoriety, but we're starting to realize that microplastics pollute our freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems too.
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Organized labour held demonstrations in front of Tim Hortons franchises in Ontario in January 2018 to protest the actions some Tim Hortons franchises have taken in response to an increase in the province’s minimum wage.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
Kendra Strauss, Simon Fraser University
May Day is a time to reflect on labour struggles of the past and demands for the future, and Canada's move toward increasing the minimum wage is not enough. Labour politics is about who counts
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Tabletop games have been around for more than a century. Early North American game makers often depicted Indigenous people as savage enemies.
Benjamin Hoy, University of Saskatchewan
For more than a century, board games have provided children with some of their first exposure to Indigenous stereotypes — hidden behind ornate lithographs, painted cubes and punched cardboard.
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Environment + Energy
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Mark Serreze, University of Colorado
Climate change is transforming the Arctic, with impacts on the rest of the planet. A geographer explains why he once doubted that human actions were causing such shifts, and what changed his mind.
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Politics
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Gregory Aftandilian, Boston University
The new secretary of state once called the Iran nuclear deal 'unconscionable.' If he supports Trump's instinct to scrap the agreement on May 12, it could unleash violence across the volatile Mideast.
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Science + Technology
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Shelley Hepworth, The Conversation
Facebook grapples with balancing the privacy needs of users with needs of the research community.
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